


Mystery at Mountbatten

by Satin_Swallow



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mystery, Suspense, ghost story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-02-14 15:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13010967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satin_Swallow/pseuds/Satin_Swallow
Summary: When a young boy is mysteriously killed at the notorious Mountbatten Hall, the question of its resident ghost is far too tantalising to overlook.





	1. The Spectre

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a little something that stalked me after I made the terrible mistake of reading ghost stories into the night. It’s a blend of details from some actual Australian legends, and one or two famous English ones. The house in question is based on Martindale Hall, a delightful (and haunted) country house in Clare Valley, South Australia. I hope you enjoy!

_“Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.”_

_(Hamlet, Act I, Scene V, Line 31)_

 

~*~*~

 

“I’ve heard it said she has no eyes,” the boy whispered, “just the piercing black - all that’s left of her dam-ned soul.”

The word ‘damned’ had two syllables, and all the drama he could afford as he kept his voice dark and low, slow to the rhythm of the fright in the other two, who were foolish enough to pretend that the impending edifice had not driven the hairs up on the backs of their necks. They had snuck through the front gate, already hanging off its hinges, and rounded the drive, which hadn’t seen a carriage or a motor for quite some time. At present, they were paused at the top of stone stairs, out in the open and before the great front doors of the most infamous house in the region.

One boy, Frederick, turned to look behind, out into the pitch black of the farmlands that lay sprawled about them, “We shouldn’t be here, lads, it’s private property.”

“Scared, Freddie?” the first boy taunted immediately.

“Yeah, of the coppers, you _brick_ ,” Fred snapped back, “Come on, Gil, the old groundskeeper’s probably still got to do his rounds. This is stupid. We’ll get picked up for trespass - you know the old codger’s a mean one.”

“No,” Gil shot back, determined as he turned to look at the upper windows, “he went through at ten, I’ve been keeping track.”

 

“How are we going to get in?” came a voice less sure of itself, younger by half and belonging to the third boy, whose blonde hair made an angel of him.

 

“If we had any sense, we wouldn’t be getting in _at all_ ,” Fred grumbled.

 

“The scullery window,” Gil ignored him, “its been open fifty years at least. I heard a housemaid was pushing it open to air the room when she heard the _screams_.”

 

“Screams?” whimpered little Arthur.

 

“As Lord Bartholomew Grange, Baron of Cavanaugh, _threw his wife from the roof_ ,” Gil said, rounding on the other boy and glaring him down as he said it in a measured, violent tone.

 

Arthur went instantly quiet, the horror seeping into his eyes as his throat went dry.

 

Fred rolled his eyes, “They never proved that. She wasn’t well, all the papers said - ”

 

“All the papers were paid for by Grange,” Gil challenged, “and the staff were threatened if they ever told the _true_ story. They all resigned, but for the old groundsman, loyal to this day to his _murderous master_. Apparently, he _helped_ when Lady Cavanaugh was heard weeping from her wounds, having survived the attack. He carried her back up to the roof, where Lord Cavanaugh threw her down a _second_ time! _Right. where. we’re. standing._ ”  

 

Arthur gasped, horrified and jumping aside as though his feet were even now covered in her blood.

 

Fred sighed loudly, though he would never admit it was from anxiety rather than exasperation, “Honestly? Twice?”

 

“It’s said that on quiet nights, you can hear her weeping,” Gil paused, the night as clear and still as glass.

 

Arthur looked as though he might faint.

 

Gil grinned, “Come on.”

 

Mountbatten Hall had been styled after the Georgian country houses of the fourth Baron’s home county, and its sandstone exterior was like a solid block, marked only by the flamboyant urns that stood at each corner of the roof, and the perfectly even windows that dotted its facade. There was a time when those windows had been full of light and gaiety, since the fourth Baron had been a man of much entertainment, and predisposed to exploration. On this night, however, they loomed ominously dark, and every catch of moonlight seemed to threaten some ghostly face blankly overlooking the little intruders.

 

As the three boys made their way around the exterior, poor Arthur could not bring himself to look too long at any windowpane, lest he find that windowpane looking _back._

He could not, for the life of him, get the image out of his head of poor Lady Cavanaugh, whimpering to her death on the gravel; he was not sure he would _ever_ manage such a feat. As for Frederick, his fears were decidedly more corporeal, though it would have been a lie to say that the thought of lingering agonies on the stairs had not affected him. He believed in ghosts as much as the next boy, but ghosts were not about to get him into strife with his father.

 

The silence of the night seemed to claw at them as they came upon the servants’ entrance, the windows to the kitchens quite obvious next to the mighty chimney that marked the impressive stove that stood on the interior.

 

“ _There!_ ” whispered Gil, his voice bright with exhilaration as he noted one of the windows decidedly out of keeping with the rest: open, and seemingly jammed that way by age and inclement weather.

 

“Let’s not,” Arthur squeaked at once, worried at what _else_ might be true.

 

“Oh come, Artie,” Gil chastised, “we’ve only just got out here! Unless you think it’ll be a piece of cake slipping passed the Headmaster’s Guard _again_.”

 

“Shhh,” Frederick insisted, knowing they must be quite close to the groundskeeper’s quarters, at least within earshot on such a still night.

 

“Well, I’m getting my money’s worth,” Gil insisted at once, pulling a torch from his back pocket, and searching for a foothold to get him up and through the window.   

 

“Be careful with that!” Frederick grabbed at the thing as the light burst into the darkness, shoving it low against the wall so it wouldn’t give them away.

 

“I guess you’ll have to hold it for me,” Gil leered. Frederick was hardly impressed.

 

“Fine, but _hurry up_.”

 

Arthur at once had no choice, for it was either follow the two older boys, or stay outside in the dark, _alone_.

 

As his little feet landed on the stone floors of the scullery, he was completely unsure if he had made the right decision. The room was full of echoes, the smell in the air dank and musty as he shuffled immediately as close as he could to Gil. The other boy was glancing around the room, trying to see what could be made out in the dark. Fred landed with a thud behind them both, the torchlight bobbing for a moment as he found his bearings and cast a little illumination on the situation. It was as it must have been when the house was still in service, barring a little housekeeping, and there was a slight look of disappointment on Gil’s face at the anticlimax. He immediately made his way to the door, jiggling the handle, which refused to open.

 

Disappointment turned to frustration.

 

“ _Keys_ ,” he barked, “the Housekeeper must have kept some spares.”

 

“Come on, Gil,” Fred warned, “that’s beyond trespass, and you know it. We get caught, it’ll be breaking and entering for us.” Gil wasn’t listening, searching drawers with an exuberance that might have been put to better use on his schoolwork. Fred sighed, casting his light to the wall near the doorway to the kitchen.

 

“There, on the wall,” he said, resigned.

 

“Bit stupid to leave the keys where any intruder can get at them,” muttered Gil without a sense of irony.

 

The jangle of the keys was brutally loud in the silence, and Arthur held his breath as though every punctuated sound might cause the ghost of Lady Cavanaugh to burst suddenly through the door in a raging and murderous fury.

 

All he got for his trouble was the click of the lock turning over as Gil beamed at them, “Here we go, lads.”

 

The door lead out into the back passage and, in turn, followed itself along to the servants stairwell, where an alcove barred the view into the entrance hall. The little passageway that led into the house proper had formerly been restricted to the butler’s use, but it proved far more tantalising to three young pairs of eyes than the more official channels. The light of the torch cast upward into the chasm of the hall, bouncing back off of countless priceless paintings - as yet still hanging up and away from the auctioneer. Gil was suddenly silent, casting his glance at the priceless reality of Lord Cavanaugh’s taste for exploration: a night light in the figure of the Taj Mahal, a case bearing four intricately designed canopic jars, a Turkish rug of inestimable value and incomparable size - stretched out as it was across the great hall and away from the staircase that reached up into the eaves of the gallery.

 

“Not a bad effort,” Fred whispered, awed by the lot, clearly more inclined to snooping now that they’d passed the point of no return. His whisper echoed up into the night.

 

“There must be an absolute _fortune_ here,” Gil answered, possibly having forgotten all about the ghost.

 

They reached the bottom of the staircase, Fred casting the torch about him in a slow and steady swing of study. Arthur was sure at all times to keep his back to the other boys, sure never to be exposed in any way to the corners that seemed darker than the rest, his breathing - which had never been particularly healthy -growing laboured in his fear.

 

Gil looked up into the eaves of the gallery above, “Those must be the bedrooms.”

 

“Are we going up?” Arthur bleated. 

 

“You bet your britches,” Gil grinned at him, “the Master Bedroom is where it’s all supposed to happen. So, if you see any fine ladies in great, green gowns - ”

 

“And peacock feathers?” Fred interrupted, his voice low.

 

“What?” Gil stopped short.

 

“Look,” said Fred.

 

The other boys turned, white as sheets, and as slowly as though the very air they disturbed would bring down the wrath of the spectre.

 

The torchlight drifted up from the landing at the top of the stairs, casting on a gilt frame and then painstakingly upward to reveal the imposing and dominant portrait of a woman in a pressed velvet dress, green as emeralds and undoubtedly Victorian in its design. Her face was painted as finest porcelain, worthy of Bouguereau in its beauty, her hands demurely folded in front of her, and atop her head the most dazzling display of peacock feathers the boys had ever seen - images of a bygone era, and of a regality that belonged mostly to the now dead.

 

“She’s beautiful,” whispered Gil.

 

“I wouldn’t get too carried away,” Arthur intoned.

 

“Yeah, Gil,” Fred taunted, “pay the lady too many compliments, and she might run off with you.”

 

As though to answer, a thud of ominous detachment and even more ominous _intent_ rang out behind them. The boys whirled round with the torch, breaths held as gasps subsided. There was nothing there, but open doorways and wooden panels, all bound for night creaking. Fred shivered at his own words, then, though his breath came out in a rush.

 

“It’s nothing,” he pressed, “just some old quirks of the place.”

 

“Come on,” Gil seemed determined to prove his own lack of fright, placing his foot decisively on the first step and forcing his way upward.

 

The gallery had an open mezzanine - undoubtedly where the family would have kept a small chamber orchestra for balls below - and one could look out over the hall from above. The floor was parquet, and several doors broke off from the gallery into the darkened rooms of the family’s more intimate spaces. The air felt close, and it was almost as though a sweet perfume could be smelled coming from some unknown source, though Fred was unsure if that was his own mind playing tricks on him, or the reality of warm air rising in the night.

 

All three said nothing as undeniable fear made every nook upsetting. 

 

“That’s the Master bedroom, over there,” Gil pointed to the back right corner of the gallery, in order that Fred might follow suit with the torch. The nearness of the room - the sickening sweet beginning to tighten his chest - was finally enough to get Arthur to protest fully as his fears began to solidify.

 

“I don’t want to go in,” he offered with sudden vehemence.       

 

Gil, who had been so full of teasing outside was suddenly muted, “We should stick together, Artie.”

 

“Then let’s stick together and get out of here,” his voice was shaking, finally frightened enough to panic.

 

“We’re so close,” Gil tried to reassure, “just a few – ”

 

“I’m frightened, Gil, please don’t make me,” the young boy began to cry, tears forcing their way forward beside his humiliation. As though designed to set him off, another thud rang out, this time from across the gallery, like a footfall from one of the other bedrooms that drew all of their attention.

 

The horrifying combination of it all drove Arthur then to irrationality, and his sobs grew instantly loud even as he tried to stifle them. Unable to succeed, he finally admitted defeat and ran, back for the stairs and a way out into the cool night, away from the cloying, the smell, and the fear.

 

It all happened so very quickly.

 

“Artie!” Fred called, at once upset that they were separating, “Artie don’t! God, you’re an idiot, Gil - ” he was already running after the younger boy, taking the torchlight with him.

 

“Fred!” Gil called out, never about to admit that it was as much being left in the dark as it was annoyance at his plans being upset. It forced his adolescence to fortify itself, and petulance became his answer as he stayed put and called out, “Well, I’m going all the way! You yellow-bellies can look back on this with embarrassment, but not me!”

 

He turned back towards the Master bedroom, ready to press his way forward in the moonlight. His body went rigid from head to toe, his hackles raised at once at what he saw.

 

The scream was high, boyish and terrified.     

 

Fred spun around, casting the light up, but he saw nothing, even as the scuffling sounds of fighting and struggling were heard. “Gil!” he cried out in terror, but that mysterious property of young boys for loyalty drove him at once back up the stairs.

 

Another voice could be heard in the scuffle, low and threatening alongside the blood that pounded in Fred’s ears, even as his feet pounded on the staircase and the parquet floor. The air seamed alive now, actively aggressive as Fred felt his chest too begin to close.

 

“Don’t!” screamed Gil.

 

“Gil?!”

 

“No _don’t_!”

 

The next sound stopped Fred in his tracks, his hand gripping the bannister of the gallery with a white vengeance. He was feet away from the door, but the noise had settled into his stomach, and weighted him in place.

 

Shattering glass. A yelp. Silence.     

 

“Gil!”

 

He quivered, horrified, and then he dared not step another foot out of place. He knew as well as any man what that sound had meant, and whoever had done it, he was probably alone with them.

 

But then, Gil needed him. Right now.

 

He charged into the room, bursting passed the door that had been ajar, and growling, “You leave him alone, you - !”

 

There was nothing but the horrible truth, the main window of the bedroom smashed out, and no sign of Gil at all. Fred slowed to a pace, as though that might avoid what he was about to see. He had forgotten all about ghosts, all about himself in the darkness – there was only the window, and what he knew would be at the bottom of it.

 

The cool night air slipped in with deceptive quiet; it felt as though nothing at all had happened. The body of Gilbert Rodgers lay motionless beside a dark patch that had begun to seep into the very stones that were supposed to have cradled Lady Cavanaugh’s own cracked skull. Fred stared at him, everything careening into a meaningless haze. He said nothing, did nothing.

 

The whimper from behind him coalesced out of nowhere, but even that did not draw the boy at once. When he did turn, it was with the weight of utter confusion. He blinked to see an old man, crumpled against the wall, moaning.

 

It must be the groundsman. He was reaching out toward him, trying to murmur something.

 

Gil’s killer.

 

Fred stayed still for an age before he finally trudged over, unable to think even of the possible risk to him. He dropped to his knees beside the man, and barely flinched as fragile hands took a hold of his shirt, the last vestige of life in them. Fred let himself be drawn closer, his ear dragged to failing lips.

 

“It –,” the voice faltered, disbelieving, “It was her. I’ve seen her… I’ve – I’ve just _seen_ her.”

 

With that said, he died.

*~*~*  


	2. Tall Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the death of Gilbert Rodgers on his conscience, Frederick Willis is forced to seek protection from an unconventional source - almost as unconventional as what he has say.

_“It’s easier to dismiss ghosts in the daylight.”_

_(_ Patricia Briggs - _Dragon Bones)_

 

~*~*~

 

“I’m never going to get to the station at this rate,” Jack Robinson complained in a tone that seemed a little too satisfied for its purpose. His hat and coat were _on,_ but not quite ready for departure, one pushed back slightly off his shoulders and the other perched precariously between his head and the eggshell white of the entrance-hall wall.   

 

“It’s rather more fun on this side of your desk anyway,” Phryne Fisher answered, holding on to his tie for good measure.

 

He smiled down at her with a softness that had appeared only in parts before she’d had to fly her father to England. Of late, however, it seemed fixed to every movement of his features, and she had to admit that somewhere between his bold appearance in London and their inevitable return to Melbourne, she’d grown quite addicted to it. Their reunion had been exactly the whirlwind he’d anticipated; the dizziness of her life was that much more vivid up close, and she had wasted no time at all in introducing him to it. It had been surprising in equal measure, however, and Jack had found in their intimacy an unprecedented picture of her quietude. She had quickly upended all his expectations, and replaced every hope that had previously assailed him in moments of anxious longing.    

 

“I should go,” he coaxed.

 

“Should you?” she challenged.

 

“I should,” he kissed her lightly - still marveling after months that he was so simply able to do so - and straightened his hat, pressing her back somewhat gingerly to set the rest of him to rights. This time, she did not resist, letting him go and content to let him go. It was a peculiarly domestic delight; she knew quite comfortably that he would be back that evening and there was more of them to be had. It was starkly distinct from saying goodbye and never allowing herself the need to say hello again. She could not deny how much she was enjoying the shift.

 

As soon as his tie was straightened, of course, he was kissing her again, and Phryne chuckled against it.

 

“ _Go_ ,” she pushed him towards the door, only to be peppered with a half dozen little pecks, “or I’ll. have you. arrested. You impossible. man! I’m in rather well with the Inspector, you see.”

 

The look he gave her - as she all but shoved him out onto the front step - was one of absolute adoration, so subtly hidden beneath his patently serene countenance, she might have missed it a thousand times. She had no doubt that she _had_ missed it a thousand times before. But now she seemed able to see him in so many shades, now that he had held her in the quiet hours of the early morning and looked at her in the half-light with a myriad of tiny differences.

 

What had been concealed before, had become a brilliant parade of colour to her since. 

 

“And don’t be late for dinner,” she warned with a healthy dollop of humoured irony, “you almost sent Mr Butler’s blood pressure through the roof last week. I can’t imagine _what_ might explode if you ruin his Boeuf Bourguignon.”

 

By that, he knew that she loved him.

 

His smile, then, was utterly unveiled, “I flatly refuse to be held responsible for the ulcer _you’ve_ already given him.”

 

Another kiss and he was gone, Phryne finding her back pressed against the door in the way it had been once before, when she had hoped for that same kiss and come up wanting.

 

It was good. Impossibly good. _Frighteningly_ good -

 

A knock. She grinned.

 

“Honestly, Inspector, I hardly know how - ” her face dropped all playfulness at once, “Aunt Prudence!”

 

The change was jarring as the bustling matriarch locomoted her way into the hall, clearly in a state of high nerve as she spoke on a rattling rail, “Phryne, I absolutely must talk to you; something _ghastly_ has happened!”

 

“What is it, Aunt P, and who - ?” a young man, tall for the youth in his face, trailed in behind her.

 

“This is Frederick Willis,” Prudence introduce with her usual gruff business, “You remember Chester Willis, from the Bridge Club?”

 

Phryne took instant pity on the boy, “How could I forget such enthusiasm for trumps?” She’d rarely seen a social bridge game with _quite_ that level of disdainful competition - if this was the son of Chester Willis, he’d had a calculated and aggressive upbringing.

 

Frederick didn’t meet her gaze, pale and seemingly only interested in the tiles on her floor.

 

Phryne blinked, instantly curious and concerned in equal measure. “Come in,” she gestured at once for the parlour, “I’ll have Mr Butler put on some tea.”

 

Aunt Prudence nodded her agreement with a restrained tick, before moving into the next room and taking up a seat on of one of the armchairs. Fredrick followed wanly, standing by her side with his hat crunched between his hands. He was dressed in the uniform of an elite boys academy, St Martin’s: a boarding school known to Phryne and any who were well-placed in Melbourne society, and one which gave Scotch College a run for its money – which, of course, was considerable.    

 

Slipping passed the boy, she rang for tea and took up her own place on the edge of the chaise, her attention turning intentionally to Aunt Prudence first, “What’s happened?”

 

“There’s been a terrible accident,” Prudence said, her glance moving to the floor in a grim and honorary silence, “young Frederick here has lost a very dear friend.” 

 

He did not flinch.

 

“I’m sorry,” Phryne said, watching him closely as the warmth of her tone cushioned about him. His eyes finally drifted upward, and what Phryne saw in them changed the game entirely. There was pain, of course, but also a buried fear that drove curiosity to intrigue in earnest, it was a horror that had settled into the hazel and turned it sour. He slowly nodded his thanks.

 

If it weren’t for Aunt Prudence’s presence, Phryne might have suggested fortifying his tea.

 

“Why don’t you sit down, Frederick,” she suggested, afraid he might otherwise _fall_ down. Prudence gave her niece a stern look that seemed to say that he had been like that _all_ _morning_ , and something _must_ be done.

 

He did sit, with equal silence.

 

The air stalled around them.

 

“Chester was in such a state this morning, he called _me_ – at first I was thoroughly confused as to what good _I_ could do in the scheme of things, but –” Phryne’s sidelong glare was enough to stop the story from being stolen from its teller.

 

Silence followed once more, but a flicker from those hazel eyes suggested it was now a somewhat grateful one.

 

“Can you tell me what happened, Fred?” Phryne asked. The emphasis fell in all the right places, asking what he could manage more than demanding information. The shortening of his name, too, unpinned their distance and unfamiliarity.

 

He seemed immediately to analyse who could be trusted, but the sight of such a pretty face, and the contrasting pressure of having to confront the police at some point, drove him finally to accept this status quo.   

 

“It was trespass, Miss,” he said, rather as though he was pulling off a scab and darting his eyes back to the floor.

 

Aunt Prudence looked as though she’d been struck, her shock was so palpable. It was the first thing she’d heard him say above a murmur.

 

“A noble pursuit, _occasionally_ ,” Phryne smirked, a little impishness slipping in despite her understanding that trespass had led to fatality.

 

He looked up at her directly, a flicker of a smile. Relief seemed to slip something from his shoulders. He was met, however, with the fact that he now had to tell her the _rest_.

 

“There were three of us. We just wanted to have a look around. Gil – that’s my friend, Gilbert Rogers -” he stopped, the horror returning. Phryne waited respectfully. “He’d heard rumours, stupid ones,” Fred could feel the whole awful mess bubbling up under her sympathetic gaze. It all sounded so trivial, but it was time to get it out. “There’s supposed to be a ghost that haunts the place,” he offered in a way that sounded more like his father than himself, “it was just a bit of idiotic fun. But we got caught. We were upstairs, heading towards the bedroom where she’s supposed to have been seen, and Arthur got scared, ran off - ”

 

The name descended on the room with a clunk, and Phryne could not help but look at Aunt Prudence, despite how long it had been since Arthur had left them.

 

Her Aunt did not look at her.

 

“I ran downstairs to go after him, and then I heard a scuffle on the gallery,” he hesitated again, “and then a window breaking.”

 

Phryne pieced the conclusion together gently, “Gil?”

 

He nodded, fighting tears with a disgusted grimace as he forced the feeling back into his gut. There was quiet as Phryne shuffled the details around in her head.

 

“I’m assuming from the fact that you’re here in my parlour, instead of a small room for questioning, that you haven’t taken this to the police?” she asked. In truth, it was a question directed at Aunt Prudence more than anything, wondering why _she_ was suddenly involved.

 

“It’s not that simple,” Aunt Prudence offered. Phryne simply waited for the explanation.     

 

“The groundsman,” Fred said, “the one who… struggled with Gil. He collapsed. I couldn’t help him, either…” he looked back to the floor.

 

Understanding blossomed over the entire conundrum, even as the grief of his ‘either’ pierced.

 

“You’re the only one who knows what happened,” Phryne finished.

 

“Arthur Johns is still missing,” Aunt Prudence said, her voice betraying only a little of her investment in that name. Her glance, and Chester Willis’s reputation said the rest: they didn’t want to come forward with this until they were sure of the outcome – the profile alone would make a circus of it in good society. Phryne could give them some assurance of Frederick’s being cleared.

 

In more ways than one. 

 

She outright refused one possibility – she was hardly about to manipulate the man she loved for the socio-political agenda at play – but she was happy to offer support on the other. If not for Chester Willis, then for the poor boy who had lost his friends, seen the worst, and now sat with the sword of Damocles hanging over his head. She would undoubtedly go in to bat for him, where the investigation was concerned.

 

Of course, there was no way to avoid the fact that telling the police was the only viable first option.

 

Phryne shuddered to imagine how quickly lawyers would be involved should she pass that suggestion by his father, and Aunt Prudence was a formidable enforcer.

 

She strategised.

 

“I’d be happy to help, Fred,” she leaned forward, blocking Aunt Prudence from the line of their conversation, “but –”       

 

***

 

It had been a hurricane of activity from ‘but’ to City South, and Phryne’s ears might still have been ringing from Aunt Prudence’s objections. As it was, though, Fred was much more decidedly placed, his honesty earning from Jack the outcome she had expected, and allowing her to turn her attention to the more functional aspects of the case.  The questioning had yielded details in abundance, Jack’s methodical approach drawing more from the boy on the context and the nature of the events, a proper description of the boys and their miscalculated plans.

 

It was _one_ detail, however, that had truly caused a stir.

 

It was a detail that had set the air alight with fascination, and put an abrupt end to the interview – well, alongside Mr Willis’ descending on the room with lawyers and demands, red in the face and ranting.  

 

It had also set Phryne’s stylish pacing into motion, and it now flourished in Jack’s office, her mind ticking over at a dangerous speed as she waited for him to release the boy into his father’s custody, ready to pounce as soon as the Inspector strode back through his door. She had made it as far as a breath in when his hand was raised in objection. 

 

“Don’t,” that breath had been enough to tell him that something outrageous was about to be said, “Don’t say it, don’t think it, and _especially_ don’t look at me with that face.” 

 

“You haven’t even stopped to find out _which_ face I’m looking at you with,” Phryne immediately defended.  

 

“I don’t have to,” he turned, taking up the seat behind his desk, “I’m familiar with them _all_.”

 

A smirk, “I wouldn’t be so sure, Inspector.”

 

“No, but then _you_ rather like never being sure of _anything_ ,” he charged.

 

A beat.

 

“Like the non-existence of murderous spectres?” she grinned, ignoring his censure, and launching into the speculation he had known was coming.

 

“ _Phryne_ ,” he was exasperated at once.

 

“Considering Fred’s evidence, the idea is not exactly without credence,” she said.

 

“Without credence?” he seemed genuinely concerned about her, “Are you honestly arguing that it was the ghost? That pushed that boy through a window?”

 

“You heard what the groundsman said before he died,” she offered.

 

“ _Allegedly_ ,” Jack pressed back, unwrapping the file that had been hastily sent over by the investigating police. “The groundsman – a Walter Harcourt, according to the locals that found him this morning – isn’t here to bear witness and verify the facts.”

 

“You’re forgetting that Frederick Willis wasn’t there to _bear witness_ , either,” she said.

 

“So, naturally, the ghost is a viable suspect,” the sarcasm was heavy.   

 

“Stranger things have been suggested,” she reminded him, “you’ll remember the ‘ghost’ of Dorothea Curtis.” 

 

“Experience has taught me that the _simplest_ explanation is ordinarily the most valid,” he argued.

 

“Not to mention the most _boring_ ,” Phryne countered, taking up her prized position on the edge of his desk.

 

“Well, I’m sorry to deprive you of the entertainment,” Jack said, leaning back into the familiar to-and-fro as though nothing at all had changed, “but life doesn’t always conform itself to the most inventive.”

 

“But – ”

 

“According to his own account, Frederick Willis burst into the room mere seconds after the window was broken and found a man, still _feet_ from where his friend had fallen, or was pushed,” he said, his brows daring her to contradict him.

 

She huffed. 

 

“All right, _fine_ , we’ll do it your way,” she acquiesced, “but that still leaves me with one pressing question.”

 

The way she was looking at him had grown far more identifiable in the past few months, if not a lot more familiar, and it was clear that she was enjoying their characteristic tussle every bit as much as he was.

 

A sigh, “What’s that?”

 

“If Walter Harcourt did indeed push poor Gilbert Rodgers through a window to his untimely death,” her voice curled about the mystery as she leaned towards him, “then who, or _what_ , killed Walter Harcourt?”  

 

***

 

“Fright,” Elizabeth MacMillan announced with characteristic unflappability.

 

There was a delighted pause as Phryne’s eyes brightened into a familiar diversion, “You’re _kidding._ ”

 

“Technically it was a heart attack,” Mac finally looked up from Harcourt’s chart, leaning against the cool medical slab that held his corpse, her face remaining unmoved despite the obvious vigour in her friend’s, “but it was undoubtedly brought on by an abnormal hormonal event, probably adrenaline, which resulted in a massive cardiac episode.” 

 

“So ghastly apparitions aren’t quite so ridiculous a proposition, then?” Phryne suggested, making sure Jack knew how very affirmed she was feeling by the news as they stood side by side across from the doctor.

 

“I’ll leave _that_ brilliant hypothesis to your fanciful mind,” she returned, “but I can tell you that whatever he saw in that room, it certainly killed him.”

 

“Couldn’t the realization that he’d killed a boy have brought about the same effect?” Jack was unconvinced.

 

“Absolutely,” Mac agreed, casting Phryne a look that indicated no loyalty in her scientific opinion whatsoever, “I can’t draw any medical conclusions about the what, only the how.”

 

“It’s suddenly grown very _pedestrian_ in here,” Phryne deflated a little, narrowing her eyes at the vile betrayer.  

 

“All the same,” Jack quickly cut her short, “it puts our investigation squarely back into the realm of the _probable_.”

 

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Mac offered blithely again, her smile quite obviously enjoying the power to play the pair off each other.  Jack shut his mouth – he should have known. “There is _something_ of the mysterious about the whole thing,” the good doctor continued, “and it’s here, around the victim’s eyes.” She rounded the edge of the slab, moving away from Harcourt’s feet and picking up a small instrument on her way. She gently scraped at the corner of the eyes - still so stark in the shock that had not subsided from his features - and held up the result for both to see.

 

A crusted white powder lay in the base of her little scoop. 

 

“What is it?” Phryne asked, her curiosity taking over from her earlier playfulness even as she leaned forward to examine it all the more closely. 

 

“Damned if I know,” Mac answered, tossing a smirk Jack’s way, “it’s not related to any bodily chemical I’m familiar with, hence the mystery.”

 

“An escalating number,” Phryne smiled.

 

“Of a distinctly _corporeal_ kind,” Jack refused, “have you sent it for spectral analysis?”

 

“I have,” Mac seemed impressed, “I’m waiting on a Professor at Melbourne University. Here’s the kicker, though – I found the exact same substance on the face of Gilbert Rodgers.”

  

A pause from both.

 

“Was any sign of it recovered at the scene?” Phryne asked.

 

Mac shook her head slowly. 

 

Phryne frowned, her thoughts turning from the intrigued to the suddenly sinister, “So, it seems our victim and our visionary have met before.”

 

“Somewhere _else_ ,” Jack agreed.

 

“Seems so,” Mac placed the scoop back onto her tray.

 

“From Fred’s telling, it was Gilbert that was really driving the whole thing,” Jack thought aloud, “pressing the other two boys into accessing the house, perpetuating the story of the ghost… maybe he and Harcourt weren’t enemies, but accomplices. Maybe Gilbert lured the others there for some nefarious purpose, using the ghost as a pretence.”

 

“But to what end?” Phryne asked, “Both of the other boys escaped.”

 

“As far as we know,” Jack said, “Arthur is still missing.”

 

“Then why _kill_ Gilbert? And why the cryptic last message to Fred?” it was Phryne’s turn to play the sceptic.

 

“I don’t know,” Jack readily admitted, “which certainly warrants a little closer investigation.” His conclusion earned a blink from Phryne as she realised that the outcome she had desired had just fallen so neatly into her lap.

 

She smiled at him, feeling the bright blossoming of that emotion that was increasing between them – the delicious co-incidence of finding the same path by such different means, “That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.”  

 

*~*~*  


	3. Of Rumours Spread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scene of the crime yields a few more clues as to what happened the night of Gilbert's death, but the stories are stacking up as well, and it's clear that fact and fiction are rapidly congealing as the town's residents start talking.

_“The muses are ghosts, and sometimes they come uninvited.”_

_(_ Stephen King - _Bag of Bones)_

 

~*~*~

 

“Collins!” Jack greeted, smiling lightly at the way the Senior Constable all but jumped out of his stripes. 

 

“ _Sir!_ ” Hugh tried to get his wits about him, having jumped back from his leaning out of the offending upstairs-window of Mountbatten. The dark stain on the gravel was still visible below, though poor Gilbert’s body had long-since been removed, and already there was _talk_ \- the kind that crept right up the back of one’s collar, if one allowed it. 

 

“Anything out of keeping with this morning’s report?” Jack continued, ignoring how pale his constable seemed to be.

 

“Noth -,” his voice was decidedly high, and he immediately cleared his throat and drove it deeper than was strictly necessary, “nothing, sir. You’ll see the residual glass here, near the window sill, not far from where Mr Harcourt’s body was found this morning.” He pointed with his pencil, inwardly rather proud of the word ‘residual’. “Rogers was found below,” he stopped, still saddened by it. 

 

“Hello Hugh,” Phryne smiled, her tone reassuring as always - well, when it wasn’t _alarming_. 

 

“Hello, Miss Fisher,” he returned, happy to be free of the tension. 

 

Phryne glanced about the room, taking in details as she had been from the moment they had entered the Hall from below - it was an extraordinary house, even by country standards, and she had to admit that it footed the ‘haunted’ bill exceptionally well. Even by daylight. The master bedroom was a sumptuous blue, its heavy European set, and mahogany finishings likely worth an absolute fortune. It all spoke of a bold taste, and she had to admit that it made her want to know rather more about the owner.

 

Jack also moved through the scene, taking in Hugh’s assessment, noting the slump of Harcourt’s outline and the ominous drop as he too leaned out of the window. “Do we have anything interesting from the interviews?” 

 

A hesitation. 

 

“Uh - not _really_ , sir.”

 

“What do you mean, not ‘really’?” Jack frowned. 

 

Phryne finally looked up from her examination of the chest at the foot of the master bed. 

 

“Well, uh - no one’s really sure what happened,” he seemed apologetic, “the only reason Mr Harcourt was discovered, was because the general store owner delivered the milk here this morning when the groundskeeper didn’t make his usual store visit. Otherwise, no one really comes up here anymore. Not since - ”

Jack’s brows rose a little in question at the pause, “Since _what_ , Collins?” 

 

He resisted the urge to answer. 

 

“Since the death of Lady Cavanaugh?” Phryne asked, innocent as a babe.

 

Hugh glanced at her, and it seemed that he might sweat through his uniform, “That’s - uh - that’s right. Miss. There have been some… _stories_ about the house since then.” 

 

Jack took a deep breath in, cradling a look to the ceiling, and turning his attention to the matter immediately, “Stories. I noticed _you_ didn’t have any trouble coming up here on your own, Collins?” 

 

“No, sir.” He cleared his throat again. 

 

“And still standing, I see,” the sarcasm returned, “Miraculous. However did you manage it?” 

 

Phryne’s smirk was charged as she took his ribbing, even if it was at her expense. His obtuseness drew a slightly contrary reaction from her, for she’d always found the competition between them somewhat heated, and found it now fuelled by evidence to that effect, carefully gathered in recent months.

 

Hugh simply looked at Jack, taking him literally and frowning in his confusion, “I - I came up the same way you did, sir.”

 

He pointed back towards the gallery.

 

“And you didn’t meet Lady Cavanaugh on the way up?” 

 

“No, sir!” the Senior Constable seemed horrified by the idea, even as he strove to make his next sound convincing by raising up to his full height, “I - I don’t believe in ghosts.”

 

Jack cast a look at Phryne. 

 

“It’s a pity,” he kept his voice even, “I’m sure she could have straightened this whole thing out for us.”

 

Phryne rolled her eyes, stepping forward with a force of energy she’d been holding back until that moment, her smile clearly illustrating how diverted she was, despite her upcoming protestation, “Well, now that we all understand everyone else’s skepticism, perhaps we can get back to the matter at hand?” She, too, leaned out of the window and down to the scene below. 

 

She blinked, tilting her head slightly, and turning back to look at where Harcourt had finally expired. She looked back to the gravel with a frown.

 

“Don’t you find the positioning a little odd?” she puzzled through the series of events in her head, putting the question to Jack with the familiarity that belonged to partners. 

 

“You mean the trajectory?” he joined her, looking out of the window for a second time.

 

“I do,” she nodded, “it seems to me it would have needed quite a push for him to land at that distance.” 

 

“Harcourt has been groundsman here for some time, it’s not unheard of for men of his working build to gather that kind of strength,” he surmised. 

 

“No,” Phryne agreed reluctantly, “but it is unusual that a man of that kind of strength should die of a jumpy heart a moment later.” 

 

Jack shrugged his bottom lip upward, tilting his head in concession, “I take your point. Perhaps a second assailant?” 

 

“A ghostly one?” she teased. He chastised her with a look, and she continued, “It’s unlikely to have been any _bodily_ being, since Fred was in here moments later and saw no one. Though, that would account for something else. Hugh, how many metres, would you say, between me and Mr Harcourt?” she asked. 

 

Jack followed the thought, counting them even as Hugh did. 

 

“About five to - seven?” he tried. 

 

She nodded. “A curiously long distance for a man to travel after pushing someone through a window,” she posed her point.

 

Jack concurred with the premise, if not her implied conclusion, “Perhaps he staggered after the incident? It’s possible the pain in his chest also caused him to fall back against the wall."

 

“But doesn’t it seem more likely that he would have sat down on the edge of the bed once the heart attack began?” Phryne looked back towards the windowsill. 

 

“I’m not sure I can claim to tell you _what_ was more likely,” Jack returned. 

 

She smiled at him, flirtatious as she leaned ever so slightly nearer, “Except that it definitely, certainly, _undoubtedly_ was _not_ the ghost of Lady Cavanaugh?” 

 

“Except for that,” he smiled back. 

 

A moment passed until Hugh coughed awkwardly.

 

“There _is_ one more thing.” Phryne and Jack turned to look at him. “Here, near the stairs,” Hugh pushed through and out of the door, the others falling in line as he did so, “it appears to be some kind of white - powder?” 

 

All joviality disappeared, replaced by intrigue as the pair behind him shot looks at each other. 

 

“It reminds me of the repellant Dottie puts down for the mice,” Hugh leaned down, smiling wistfully at the mention of his wife as he pointed out the mark near the bottom of the balusters. 

 

Phryne smiled at the remark, still not entirely recovered from their sweetness, even as she and Jack peered down over his shoulder. A small, round patch, about the width of a billiard ball could be seen marking the wood before the carpeting of the upper level. It was crusted, though clearly a powder base, and it appeared to have welded itself to the floor. Jack peered more closely, working through the possibilities. Not one for distant observation, the lady detective soon pressed further in and swept up a fingerful on the edge of a glove. Jack worried for a moment that she might try to taste it, and all but strove to stop her before she brought it to her nose and instantly shied away from it instead. 

 

“Ugh - ! ” 

 

“What is it?” he panicked anyway.

 

“I couldn’t tell you,” she wrinkled her nose tightly against it, “it’s so wickedly sweet, it almost singes.” She couldn’t bring herself to smell it again. 

 

“Collins, collect some of it, will you, and we’ll bring it back to Dr MacMillan for further test - ”

 

“You shouldn’t be here,” came a voice pressed up against the foot of the staircase, eyeing the portrait of Lady Cavanaugh that still intimidated from the wall above. 

 

All three leapt up from their investigation, startled beyond measure and one less likely to admit it than the next. 

 

After a moment for breath, Jack stepped firmly to the top of the stairs. 

 

“We’re with the Victorian Constabulary, Miss,” he said firmly, though _never_ to compensate, “we’re investigating the death - ”

 

“Of the boy,” she finished, her eyes never leaving the painted green dress, “I know.” 

 

Phryne observed her carefully - the frailty of her frame, the quiver of her voice, she looked to be at least sixty-five, but her words came as though uttered by a child. Her clothes were worn, but neat, and they hung about her as though they too were weeping. Slowly, she turned to look up at the trio, her eyes the same sort of haunted Phryne had seen in Frederick. 

 

“Who are you?” she asked. 

 

“My name is Josephine Randall, Miss,” she swallowed, “I used to be a housemaid here.” 

 

***

 

Lord Cavanaugh’s study was to be envied. It was lined from floor to ceiling with books, their numerousness challenged only by the plethora of artefacts that slotted themselves into whatever spaces could be found on the walls: totems, spears, Samurai suits, and Ceylonese headdresses, Pacific burial masks, and Egyptian temple reliefs - all originals, and all packed tightly into the corner of the house that was clearly reserved for a quick escape to cigars and a decent scotch. Josephine sat in a small chair to one side, having refused a place on the master’s leather office set. She cradled a glass of water that Hugh had managed from the kitchens. 

 

“When I heard about Walter, I knew I had to come,” she offered with the same timid sound that had issued such a juxtaposed command to them earlier. “He’s served this house so faithfully, and now this.” 

 

“News travels quickly,” Jack noted from his place leaning on the door-frame. It was hardly mid-afternoon. 

 

“I live in the village,” she clarified, “I grew up on this farm, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave Monterrey just because…” she raised a hand, as though it might stop the thought from becoming a reality before her, her fingers shaking almost violently.

 

Phryne offered up a look at Jack, her instinct to reach out to the woman only curbed by the subconscious sensation that to touch her might be to break her. She crossed her legs to lessen the discomfort of a denied instinct, and shuffled further to the edge of her own chair. “You and Walter were close?” she tried. 

 

“He was like a father to me when I arrived, though he was only a few years older,” she remembered, “a few years in service can mean everything. He’d been a groom before Lord Cavanaugh had noted his potential for the land, they were friends.” It was as though she had remembered why she came, “Which is why he could not _possibly_ have killed that boy.” 

 

Her voice learned strength in an instant. Phryne blinked. 

 

“Mrs Randall,” Jack suggested quietly, “Walter was the last man to be seen with the deceased, and very shortly after his fall.” 

 

“Walter is himself _deceased_ , as you’ll remember,” came the defence with the remainder of its lesson. Jack stopped. 

 

“Is it possible - ” Phryne was not about to be cowed, “an accident?” 

 

The fear returned, the shivering discomfort, “This was no accident.” 

 

Jack braced himself. 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

Watery blue eyes drifted to the door; the foot of the staircase could be seen just behind Jack, on the other side of the hall, and somewhere beyond the wallpaper -- the portrait. Phryne followed the gaze, and the thought, and what had been an intriguing fancy before, a fascinating tidbit, became suddenly a horror again. She felt the muscles in her shoulders tense as the air around them seemed to thicken, constrict. “There’s evil in this house,” Mrs Randall muttered quietly, afraid she might be heard. 

 

“Evil?” Jack kept his tone neutral. She looked up at him, the solidity of time settling on a moment she had lived a thousand times. 

 

“Don’t worry, Inspector Robinson, you don’t have to hide your scepticism from me,” she whispered, “I’ve been disbelieved before.” It was defiant, as though Walter’s death had somehow forced her into some new kind of war - perhaps it had. 

 

“We’ve heard stories,” Phryne tried instead, “rumours of ongoings since Lady Cavanaugh’s death. Though, I’m afraid they’re hardly the sort of thing the Inspector can put before a Court of Law.” It was sympathetic, but practical, and where she could not lay a comforting hand, Phryne offered the same listening ear she had proffered to Fred. Josephine eyed her cautiously before looking to the floor.

 

“Harry Taylor,” she creaked out, clear as a conundrum. 

 

“Is he - someone else who worked in the household?” Phryne grasped. 

 

“He’s the Auctioneer’s Inspector who tried to _sell it_ ,” Mrs Randall clarified, “after Lord Cavanaugh’s disappearance, his siblings tried to have the contents auctioned off by order of the family lawyer. They’re wealthy enough, you see, and Lord Cavanaugh’s collection is, well, somewhat eccentric.” She gestured at the room around them, as though that were some kind of proof.

 

“And he was unsuccessful?” Jack pressed. 

 

“He was institutionalised,” came the hard answer, cold and slicing at him. 

 

“What?” Phryne’s voice betrayed her dislike of that word. 

 

“After a number of hours of inventory, one evening, Mr Taylor fled the house in a fit of fear. For three days he could barely speak,” Josephine said, “and when he did, it was raving. He lost his position, he lost his wife - everything. I believe he has since regained his faculties, but in all my years I have not been able to get him to tell me what it was that drove him out of this house.” 

 

Hugh was clutching his notepad as though it might take back that he had been in the room alone, where two men had died. His earlier pallor had gone green in colour, and he reminded himself repeatedly that he did not _believe_ in ghosts. 

 

There was a pause. 

 

“I think that you should go home, Mrs Randall,” Jack said gently, unflappable and stepping away from the door and towards them, breaking the tension of the story and helping the woman to her feet. “It’ll take us some time to follow-up on this lead, but we’re grateful for your help.” 

 

She shook her head very slowly, standing nonetheless and passing him the glass, “You ignore me at yourown peril, Inspector.” 

 

It wasn’t a threat, but a warning.

 

***

 

Wardlow was quiet that evening, not the gaiety that had greeted it in the warm light of morning, and Phryne sat curled up on the chaise with a glass of fortified wine, still wrapping herself around the story as it had come to them. Having discarded her shoes for stockinged feet, and a fixed expression of subdued contemplation, she allowed the facts and the fancies to slip passed her in a slow procession. 

 

“I can’t help but think of Mr Taylor,” she finally murmured at the fire, “and Fred, of course, and poor Gilbert.” 

 

Settled in an armchair across from her, Jack glanced up from his own silent calculations. Though his shirtsleeves were rolled up and mimicking her comfort, he looked quite at his ease by contrast. He watched her for a second, allowing the warmth of her empathy to touch him the way it had from the moment he had first seen it -- now, however, he was allowed to love it without guard, love _her_ without guard. 

 

And he did so. 

 

“It’s a growing list of tragedies,” he offered softly back. 

 

She turned to look at him, the sound of his voice able to soothe through the disturbance of the whole affair. By firelight, he was all shadows and defined edges, handsome in the most aching way. She smiled at him, and his perfect response. “With an increasingly mysterious centre,” she tested once more with just a little cheek to counteract the hanging gloom. 

 

Jack chuckled, concurring despite himself, “Whatever the outcome of Mrs Randall’s testimony, she has a _compelling_ way with words.” 

 

Phryne adored that he used the word testimony, instead of ‘story’. His intention to investigate was clear, despite his personal misgivings, and it made him a stellar policeman. “Did Mac say when we might expect a result on the mysterious white substance on the stairs?” 

 

“Not conclusively - it rather depends on the skill of the chemist,” he admitted. Phryne simply nodded, feeling the awful tightness of being unable to move immediately when so much was at stake. 

 

She pressed it decisively out of her mind. 

 

“I thought dear Hugh was going to faint,” she grinned, taking a sip of her wine. 

 

Jack agreed, “The last time I saw him as pale was at the sight of a Crucifix on a pretty girl.” 

 

Phryne laughed outright, and it was a relief to see her do so, her face brightening back to the uncomplicated joy he never wanted her to lose. She was radiant when she was like this, vulnerability and delight at once. He wanted always to see her happy. “It does seem an odd number of stacking coincidences, though,” she used her advantage to force him to confront the reality. 

 

He did not bite for a second. 

 

“You know as well as I do that people have a way with tales like these,” he said, “we’ve heard some startling things in our time.”

 

“In our time?” she raised her brows, amused, “Suddenly I feel as though we’re a hundred and eight.” 

 

The shift was clear and it was sudden, a spark, “I can personally guarantee, sitting there as you are right now, you look nothing of the kind.” 

 

It was heat from beginning to end, and she felt it as much as she had felt the tenderness of his earlier tact. She knew that in this way, at least, their working relationship was thoroughly compromised, for whenever he spoke to her in that tone, it was an impossibility to think of anything else. She tilted her chin to the distraction, meeting his gaze head on before she gently nodded at the space beside her. 

 

He stood, placing his glass on a small tray on the table and moving to take his seat on the edge of the chaise, enclosing her between himself and the back of it somewhat as he faced her. His kiss was sincere, expressive rather than an implication, and it satisfied to press her nose gently up against his as she breathed. There were a myriad of ways to soothe the emotional output of such days, but Phryne had to confess that this was far and away becoming her favourite. She pulled back a little, to look at him. 

 

“One thing is certain,” she suggested playfully, “ _something_ bizarre is going on in that house, and there’s only one real way to find out if it’s a _supernatural_ something.” 

 

It was Jack’s turn to laugh, his gaze dropping to the empty space beside her for a moment before he looked back up at her with a sigh, “You’re incorrigible.” 

 

“We’ll talk about _that_ later,” she flirted. 

 

“A trip to the auction house?” he knew he would have no peace until he played along, but he tried for sense nonetheless. 

 

She dropped her chin as though he wasn’t even trying.

 

“I draw the line at another séance,” he flatly refused, “if I see any sign of ectoplasm, or - ”

 

“Fortunate, then, that Aunt P had us _banned_ from the Spiritualist Society after the _last_ time,” she said, “though I can’t imagine why - it’s hardly our fault Mrs Bolkonsky was a fraud.”

 

Jack was chuckling again, “No more palm secrets or cryptic clues?” 

 

“No longer necessary,” she smiled. 

 

His fingers were already kneading gently at her calf, “I have to confess myself at a loss, then, Miss Fisher. I thought there was only one way to get in touch with the other side.” 

 

The formality of her name sent a delightful shiver through her. 

 

“On the contrary,” she tried to maintain her resolution, “there are _many_ ways to skin a spectre.”

 

“Is that so?” he drew closer. 

 

“It is.” 

 

~*~*~


	4. On the Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time for Arthur is running out, and wild speculation is perhaps more frustrating than helpful - and yet, the only leads forthcoming are of the distinctly unsettling kind.

_“[T]he ghosts you chase you never catch_ _.”_

_(_ John Malkovich _)_

 

~*~*~

 

City South was its usual lunchtime buzz when the news about Harry Taylor arrived – Henry John Taylor, as per his Birth Certificate. It had been Jack’s initial fear that the man might have left the state to start over in greener pastures, or worse. As it was, however, Hugh descended on his office with an exuberance that could only indicate good news. The Inspector set aside the incoming reports from the St Martin’s school interviews. He had requested them from the local constabulary in Monterrey, after the preliminary search of the Mountbatten surrounds had still not yielded any clues about Arthur Johns’ whereabouts; despite all eyes seeming so fixed on the ghost, Arthur’s disappearance was a far more pressing concern to his mind. Of course, he knew as well as the next man that the local police were mobilising every effort to find him, and the frustrating reality was that the fastest way to him was to follow the clues where they led. 

 

“Ballarat?” he repeated back to Hugh’s bright countenance as the report was given. “Well, it’s not the Himalayas, at least. Have you made enquiries as to when he can present in Melbourne for interview?”

 

The brightness faltered, “I’m afraid not, sir. I could only get Mr Taylor’s housekeeper on the line, and she says that it’s impossible.”

 

Jack frowned, always impatient when trivialities strove to prevent him from doing his job, “I find it hard to believe that an auctioneer’s schedule could be quite that full.”

 

“No, it’s not that,” Hugh objected, and then hesitated because of what they both already new, “she says he’s _housebound_ , sir.”

 

“Housebound?” Jack’s tone softened.   

 

Hugh nodded, “Apparently it’s not advised by his doctor to travel long distances. Or, any distances, really. Apparently it gives him night terrors, sir.”

 

“Oh for Heaven’s sake,” Jack couldn’t help it, the whole thing seemed too ridiculous for words. He reigned it in, though, recognizing that whatever his opinions about ghosts, Taylor had certainly suffered _something_ , and certainly a great deal. “Make an appointment with the housekeeper, Collins, and clear my schedule for it, I’ll have to head up there and conduct the interview myself.”

 

“Yes, sir,” he immediately left the room, charged with a task.

 

_Housebound._

 

The whole affair was growing stranger by the minute, and Jack’s initial instincts that it ought to be handled from Melbourne were increasingly justified – now it was moving to Ballarat. He wiped his chin with his hand, a nervous habit that appeared when something unpleasant could be spied off the bow. He wasn’t sure that Mr Taylor’s experience was even connected to the issues at hand, let alone pertinent.

 

He frowned, becoming suddenly aware of an absence as he tried to press through the complications of the matter. It startled him a little to realise that he missed Phryne -- though, it was not the missing so much as it was the circumstance for it. Of course he missed her, she was like a red rose in amongst the brambles and they’d barely parted company for more than five minutes together in the past few months. It was an intimate thing, however, to recognise that he not only missed her, but felt inwardly that he _needed_ her.

 

Here.

 

For this.    

 

He breathed that in for a moment, and understood its rarity; it was something he and Rosie had never shared. Dear God, were there any further ways he could be in love with her? 

 

The phone rang, bringing him out of the thought even as Collins was speaking, before –

 

“Sir, it’s Mr Butler on behalf of Miss Fisher,” Hugh’s head popped around the doorjamb. Jack smiled, allowing himself the sentimentality of thinking she might also have been thinking of him. “She’s on her way to Mountbatten Hall, sir.  Something about an ‘Independent Witness’?”  

 

It wasn’t quite what he had been expecting, in fact, he wasn’t really sure what he _had_ been expecting.

 

Then… _what_?

 

***

 

The Hispano-Suiza had seen a lot of strange guests in its lifetime, but even Phryne had to admit that this was a first. The nervous, string-bean of a man - moving around the perimeter of Mountbatten with a strange precision - was neither dashing beau, nor helpless foundling in need of love or detecting. As she leaned gently against the motor car, she eyed him with a proud sort of fascination - his wire-rimmed glasses, his impeccable blue suit. That she’d found him _at all_ was somewhat a feat, considering the rarity of his breed. 

 

At present, he was lifting a handful of dirt to his nose before sifting it carefully through his fingers and studying it intently.

 

She might have had the chance to ask him why, had the telltale dust of Jack’s arrival not immediately distracted her as his motor car pulled up to the large, stone fountain at the base of the main-entrance stairs. With limited water supplies to the area, a fountain of any magnitude was an extravagance, let alone one of this size. It was yet another clue as to the nature of the man who had designed and built the Hall. It was also irrelevant, however, as Jack emerged with the thud of a shutting door, his face unsurprisingly straight, and querying.

Phryne knew she would have a fight on her hands to explain this one - though she did have the advantage that she had actually _waited_ for him to arrive.     

 

The truth was that he had his suspicions about where this was heading, and while he had been open to following a broader approach the day before, it would be a lie to say that the failure of any _concrete_ evidence to turn up had somewhat dampened his patience.

 

He knew the statistics.

 

“Jack,” she pressed herself away from the car, and her confidence reached him in a sort of wave from the movement.

 

“Phryne,” he seemed less sure. 

 

“Do try to look less frightened,” she chided, immediately hooking an arm into his elbow and all but dragging him up the stairs.

 

“I think ‘wary’ is the word you’re looking for,” he challenged.

 

“Oh come now,” she chuckled, “you haven’t even met him yet. At least you’re not sitting at a table in some hotel with a crystal ball and questionable electrics.”

 

“So he _is_ a Medium, then?” he cut straight to the chase, hoping she picked up on the fact that fanciful ideas were not  a high priority for him when a child was still missing.

 

“He’s not,” she had already prepared her defence, “he’s a _scientist_.”  

 

As though it were planned, she rounded the corner of the house to find the man with his ear now pressed to the stonework, feeling up along the wall until, quite suddenly, he turned and licked at the stone with great concentration. The pair halted. Jack’s sidelong glance was so pronounced, Phryne thought she could feel it physically.

 

She stifled a laugh, trying to salvage what she could.

 

“Inspector Robinson, may I present Dr Reginald Winslow – Physicist, Chemist, and – ”

 

“Psychic Investigator,” Dr Winslow declared in a distinctly English accent, extricating himself from the wall and reaching out a hand to shake Jack’s, as though the incident was nothing at all. His eyes were an expressive green, bright and intelligent, and the mouse-ish look about his face meant that he had the appearance of being only in his thirties - an up-and-comer, then. 

 

Not one for circumventing politesse, Jack took his hand and proceeded. “Dr Winslow,” he began, and the expertise Phryne had been gathering on his subtleties gave her a glaring insight into just what he thought of the whole situation in the first instance, “I wasn’t aware that we _had_ any Psychic Investigators in Melbourne.”

 

A small, embarrassed smile, “Actually, we’ve had some trouble establishing any branch of the Society in Australia. The Spiritualists have been ironically sceptical of our methods, and surprisingly influential.”

 

Jack frowned slightly, “Sceptical of _your_ methods?”     

 

“I’m afraid so,” he gave a shrug, as though he hadn’t been licking a wall mere moments before.

 

“Dr Winslow is a champion of the Society for Psychical Research,” Phryne cut in, “and the increasingly stringent rules on the use of the scientific method in their investigations. Apparently, it’s made him somewhat unpopular in the more… credulous circles of London.” 

 

“Sir Arthur Conan Doyle flatly refuses to speak to me,” Winslow joked, “but when the will to believe is strong, it can be devastating to objectivity.”

 

Jack stumbled over that argument – it was not at all what he had expected.

 

“We’re very fortunate _indeed,_ that he’s been sent by the President of the SPR, to assist local law enforcement by elucidating on the common tactics of _fraud_ being perpetrated in Europe.”

 

“I see.”

 

“After Heinrich Melzer was exposed in ’26, my calendar has been getting steadily full,” the doctor continued on his jocular spree with a smile.

 

“Is that name supposed to be familiar to me?” Jack exposed it.

 

“Uh -” his nervousness returned, Phryne noted, and his youth became more apparent as he strove to veer back towards proving his credentials, “in 1926 a renowned medium, Heinrich Melzer, was exposed as a fraud after he was discovered to be falsifying acts of alleged apportation - that’s when objects are said to move or materialise during a psychic event. Melzer’s tactics were scrutinised in a controlled environment, and it was discovered that he’d been hiding small rocks and flowers for use during his séances.”

 

“How?” Jack would never admit that it was curiosity.

 

“By taping them behind his ears,” Reginald reported dutifully.

 

“Of course.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And how is it you came to know about our investigation?”

 

Winslow smiled conspiratorially, “Prudence Stanley has been one of our fiercest opponents.”

 

“Honestly, I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it before - Aunt Prudence has been very vocal about the whole situation,” Phryne added, “but when we were discussing it last night, I couldn’t believe it hadn’t come to me sooner.”

 

Other than his instinct to improve on her definition of ‘discussing’ something, Jack hesitated to move forward until the revelation had settled into a coherent consideration. His scepticism, intrenched as it was, had a natural aversion to the whole idea, and he couldn’t help but think that the introduction of such a variable into the equation would only be fuel to the fire - not to mention that if word _ever_ got out to the boys in the Commissioner’s office, he’d be done for in terms of credibility.

 

There was one thing he needed to know before he could even dare to proceed.

 

“In the interest of thoroughness,” he began carefully, “what exactly were you just doing?”

 

Reginald frowned before putting the pieces together, “Oh, the wall!”

 

“The wall,” Jack repeated for clarity.

 

“The Society has discovered that one of the chief causes of frequent appearances of an alleged apparition - such as the one Miss Fisher has described to me - is an environmental factor such as a high chemical element level, or other influencing agent. I’ve just been examining the soil, and sometimes a particularly high salt content can be detected in the masonry of older structures,” he explained.

 

It was upsettingly logical, and Jack wasn’t sure if that was off-putting or not.

 

“Anyway, Dr Winslow asked if he could examine the site, so I thought it might be an excellent way to narrow the playing field somewhat,” Phryne pressed on, “if this is a fraud, I’m sure one of London’s leading Psychic Investigators can unmask it.”

 

Jack sighed.

 

***

 

As the door to Mountbatten creaked open, the afternoon sunlight fell like a sabre into the main entrance hall, casting back the gloom with effective precision. Phryne felt again the impressive presence of the place, and the exquisite embroidery of the hall carpet bathed in the wash of the golden hour only added to it. In some sense, there was an air of nostalgia in the afternoon, a sadness to contrast with the eerie echoing of the night she imagined the huge vaulted ceilings might encourage. Again, she could not avoid looking up at the portrait of Lady Cavanaugh, and even she seemed more subdued by the time of day - her cold, white skin looking more life-like in the warmth of it.

 

“A handsome woman,” Reginald commented as he stepped up beside her, a small case in his hands that resembled a physician’s.

 

“Our alleged ghost,” she informed him.

 

He met her gaze and then seemed to reconsider his evaluation, “In that case, I’ll reserve my opinions.”

 

Whatever his thoughts on his profession, Jack enjoyed the man’s sense of humour. “The incident occurred in the Master Bedroom upstairs,” he explained, though he was unsure what the gentleman might need to draw his conclusions.

 

“And is that room of any significance to the reports of the apparition?” Winslow returned in all seriousness.

 

“I - believe so,” Jack cleared his throat.

 

“It’s rumoured to be the site of some of her appearances,” Phryne fed quite happily, “though the legend itself seems to circulate around her being thrown from the roof.” Jack frowned at her. “I had a few questions of my own for the locals,” she explained. “They were all very interested in the fact that Gilbert Rogers was found in the exact location Lady Cavanaugh’s body was retrieved after her death.”

 

“I’m sure they were,” Reginald shook his head as he turned and looked up into the gallery, “and have we got any comprehensive reports of these supposed sightings? Other than the auctioneer’s employee you were telling me about?”

 

Jack didn’t mention that they’d located him.

 

“Not as yet,” Phryne concluded.

 

“Unfortunately, it’s not been the focus of our investigation,” Jack said with a slight bent of irony.

 

“Understandably,” Reginald agreed, “after all, two people are dead and a boy is missing.”

 

Again, Jack found himself surprised, and pleasantly so.

 

“Exactly.”    

 

They moved in this manner from room to room: the impressive Drawing Room, with its imported fireplace, the Dining Room, dominated by an ornate Cherry-wood table, the kitchens, and the Baron’s study - which drew admiration from Dr Winslow for a great many things, though none of them seemed particularly related to psychic events.  It wasn’t until they stopped in the Billiards Room that the doctor frowned, placed his case on the floor and drew out a notepad, scribbling something inscrutable on it before making his way silently out of the door. Phryne and Jack looked at each other, but all she could offer was a shrug and a smile - one which clearly identified how diverted she was by the whole display, whatever its credibility.

 

Finally, they arrived in the Master Bedroom, having examined numerous servants’ quarters on the upper level, not to mention the guest and children’s rooms. Again, nothing remarkable had been said, and the whole thing had the air of purchasing real estate, rather than investigating the paranormal. Again, Jack was unsure if he found it reassuring or not.    

 

The Room itself was as it had been the day before, and Jack took the time to cast his eye over it for a fresh examination. Still nothing extraordinary stood out. Dr Winslow, however, had begun furiously scribbling away. For an instant, Jack had the descending feeling that he was more _reporter_ than scientist, and that this whole thing had been a bid to get into a sealed crime-scene.

 

The next series of questions immediately put that notion to bed.

 

“And were those sitting chairs as they are now when the body was discovered?” he asked.

 

“I can’t vouch for the locals who found him,” Jack answered hesitantly, “but we have strict protocols about moving furniture around a crime scene.”

 

“You see how they’re placed? Compared to the table? It’s like a strong wind has redirected them. Oddly-scattered furniture is thought to be a sign of Spectral Propulsion - it’s common in Poltergeist cases.” He said it with such seriousness, it was hard not to be impressed. He pointed to the mirror of the dressing table, “You can see that mirror is also at on odd angle, as though pushed back. Has it been fingerprinted?”

 

“We’ll be waiting on the results of scene analysis for a while yet,” Jack defended, “it’s too early for conclusive evidence.”

 

“Of course,” came the practical reply.

 

After a moment of thought, and no further clues, Winslow turned to face them both with a smile, “I’m satisfied that there’s enough here.”

 

“To dismiss the claims?” Jack hoped.

 

“To open a more thorough investigation,” he contradicted, as though it had been abundantly clear from everything he had said. Phryne’s brows rose, casting a look of victory at Jack that would have been unbecoming on anyone else.

 

“What exactly would that require?” Jack protested, the weight of Arthur’s disappearance beginning to press at him once more.

 

“A few controlled experiments of the place, some ongoing observation - nothing that would necessarily impede on your own enquires - although, I would like the opportunity to speak to the alleged witnesses of the phenomenon. Preferably witnesses a little more… objective than Mrs Randall.”

 

“Absolutely not.”

 

“Why not?” Phryne was surprised at the forcefulness with which Jack had said it.

 

“The only witnesses we have, at present, are both still pertinent to our investigation, Dr Winslow. I won’t have another investigation clouding their judgment on what is already a complicated matter. Certainly not for the sake of - ” he stopped, trying not to be uncivil.

 

“I understand,” Winslow retreated before it would become necessary, and raised his hands in surrender. “Naturally, I am here only to provide whatever support I can, not to compromise your inquiry. This is your investigation, Inspector.”  

 

***

 

Despite the doctor’s diplomacy, Phryne still felt the lingering suddenness of Jack’s disapproval over dinner. Certainly they had shared a delicious sort of interplay over his disagreement about the possibility of ghosts, but the openness she had praised in him the night before had vanished so suddenly before her eyes; she was unsure what had brought it about. “It can’t hurt to let him conduct some observational work,” she pressed, her tone in some contradiction to the candlelight.

 

Jack looked up at her, still chewing and having to catch up with her thought process for a moment.

 

“It can hurt,” he said, “and you know that.”

 

His resolve was clear, and Phryne felt the presence of an argument at her back, perhaps the first real one since they’d returned from London. It was a strange sensation, and one she disliked to let into their new space - one which had been so rich with co-operation despite their usual differences of tactic.

 

She held her tongue against what she wanted to say.

 

“Has there been any more from the school interviews?” she tried instead.

 

“Nothing particular,” he conceded, “Gil was known for being an occasional trouble-maker, the others were along for the ride.”

 

“And… the woods on the grounds?” she had intentionally stayed away from them, and from the line of local police trudging through the underbrush; she’d done enough picking through woods looking for children. She knew her limits where that was concerned.

 

“Nothing,” Jack muttered darkly.

 

Ah.

 

It fell somewhat neatly into place. She could hear Arthur on his voice, and the seeming distraction of a ghost was mounting while all hard evidence slipped slowly through his fingers. She smiled softly, feeling a wash of care - his sensitivities were as intoxicating to her as his forthrightness.

 

“What else do we have?” she asked earnestly, bringing the conclusion to his feet.  

 

“Don’t, Phryne,” Jack stated simply, placing his fork on his plate, and staring at his greens.

 

She blinked at him, quite thrown by the response. It hadn’t been aggressive, hadn’t pressed carelessly over him as she had been prone to. The press of that argument returned. “Don’t what, Jack?” she asked.

 

“Don’t talk to me about _ghosts_ when -” she could see him restrain himself. Then, he deflated in his chair with a huff, “I’m sorry.”

 

She breathed, paused for a moment as she considered him. “This is the fastest way I know how to get there,” she laid the cards squarely on the table, “and I know full well that it might be a spectacular red herring, but what else do we have?”

 

Jack looked up at her, knowing that she was right despite his frustrations. He was letting his dissatisfaction with it get to him, and he knew it. “We’ve located Mr Taylor,” he confessed. 

 

“Where?”

 

“Housebound, in Ballarat,” he said, “I’m heading up there to question him - his doctors don’t think he can make the trip to Melbourne.”

 

“That’s excellent news, Jack,” she said, really trying to remind him of the fact.

 

“Is it?” he answered calmly, his blue eyes reaching for her across the half-light. It all but shattered her, the way he tugged at her, and the earlier need he had felt so keenly returned and impressed itself on her in this instance. She was up from her chair in seconds, but whatever she was planning to soothe him was interrupted by a confident knock at the front door.

 

Mr Butler’s quick work revealed it to be Mac, hat in her hand.

 

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” she said almost as soon as they were in the parlour, “but we’ve had some complications with the analysis of our mysterious powder.” Whatever frustrations Jack had been nursing turned into a clenched fist as he leaned against the mantle. Phryne felt the tension more than saw it, and she offered Mac her own apologetic look.

 

“Not exactly what we were hoping for,” she offered more as explanation than chastisement.

 

“I know,” Mac remained standing, even as Phryne sat, “I heard that the search team turned up very little.”

 

“There’s not much more for us to go on,” Jack said, pulling in his earlier moodiness for a practical reality, “we were hoping for something more concrete.”

 

Phryne felt the immediate urge to touch him.

 

“I spoke with the University, and the reality is that the substance doesn’t fit any of their identified chemical models,” she left out the fact that it had been a cause of some excitement for the scientific minds who hadn’t quite made the leap from intriguing discovery to missing boy. “Without a verifiable match, or even a measurable similarity, it’ll take time for them to cross-reference with other institutes. I can confirm that the substance found on the stairs matches that found on Harcourt and Rogers, though?”

 

Phryne’s earlier comment echoed in Jack’s head, _“What else do we have?”_

“Thank you, Dr MacMillan,” he finished quietly.

 

Mac felt the finality, and cast a querying glance to Phryne. She had never allowed defeatism in the lady detective, and with her emerging relationship with the Inspector, she wondered how much leeway she had to challenge it _there_ as well. Of course, Phryne _definitely_ had her own methods for managing it, but Mac hated to leave an end untied.

 

A pause.

 

“So, what’s next?” she tossed her hat onto a chair and confidently strode forward to pick up a glass of whiskey that had been sneakily placed there by Mr Butler, leaning an elbow on the chair back – comfortable as she pleased. Jack watched her with some surprise. Phryne was more convinced than ever that she possessed the best friends in the world.

 

“A number of… unconventional avenues,” she offered.

 

“God, that _does_ sound depressing,” Mac took a sip, “how unconventional?”

 

“Well – “ Phryne gradually realised what she was about to come up against. She hesitated as Jack eyed her. It was perhaps the injection of energy that he had needed.

 

“Parapsychology,” he said flatly, feeling vindicated already.

 

Mac coughed into her glass. Phryne was ready to recant her opinion of friends if necessary.

 

“I’m sorry… what?”

 

“Without hard evidence on the boys, we’re forced to follow leads from the locals –“ Jack came over to claim his glass as well, “the best we’ve come up with so far is a previously-institutionalized auctioneer, and a psychic investigator who has _very kindly_ offered to validate our ‘ghost’.”      

 

“I’m so pleased to know that’s where my tax dollars are going,” the doctor muttered.

 

“All right, all right,” Phryne put a stop to it immediately, feeling the return of lightness even as she was left to fend for herself, “what Jack has _failed_ to mention is that Dr Winslow has presented as an expert witness in countless fraud cases in London. So, whatever your opinion on his science – “

 

“If we want to call it that – “

 

“ _Whatever your opinions on his science_ ,” Phryne forged ahead with a quick glare, “he might offer up a fresh perspective that could help us understand the rest. Like it or not, the ghost is a central figure in this whole conundrum, and the _only_ one that seems to be offering up any results.”

 

 “If we want to call them ‘results’ at all,” Jack countered, “you yourself mentioned the possibility of a red herring, and we could be spending our resources elsewhere.”

 

“To say nothing of the fact that Parapsychology as a ‘science’ has turned up no material evidence in its fifty years of research,” Mac pulled up the rear, “that’s a strain if ever I saw one.”

 

“Ah, but Dr Winslow has _offered_ himself as a resource,” Phryne objected, “he doesn’t need to be a strain.”

 

“Don’t pretend we won’t have to keep a lid on local curiosities if he suddenly appears on the scene with a truck full of _spectro-scopes_ , or whatever a Psychic Investigator uses,” Jack said.

 

Mac couldn’t help but chuckle at that, the image it conjured far too amusing to really entertain as a serious conversation. Phryne felt it too, and she was pleased with the change, as far as the gloomy alternative was concerned. She allowed the banter for Jack’s sake. “I hear nothing dispels unhelpful rumours like a team of scientists secretly investing time and money into the source,” Mac finished blithely.

 

And with that, Jack pressed it a step too far, “And who’s going to keep an eye on him while he does his ‘observing’?”  

 

Phryne lept at it.

 

“I will,” she said firmly, that sparkle of victory returning.

 

Jack stopped.

 

Damn it.

 

Damn it all.

 

*~*~*  


	5. What the Auctioneer Inspector Saw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the arrival of Arthur's parents, Jack and Phryne are forced to follow up on the most ready clues - no matter how absurd.

_“_ _The main thing about ghosts – most of them have lost their voices._ ”

_(_ Rick Riordan ,  _The Blood of Olympus_ _)_

 

~*~*~

 

“I’m surprised we didn’t take the train,” Phryne coaxed as she and Jack stood side-by-side on Henry Taylor’s verandah, out of the mid-afternoon, Ballarat sun. 

 

Jack smirked, “Mrs Collins informed me that you have a taste for hanging from carriages. Considering the corroborating evidence I have as to your taste for _standing_ on them, I’d much rather your head remained attached to your body.”

 

He was back in some good humour, and Phryne entertained his protectiveness with an express hope that the levity would continue. He had held her rather earnestly after Mac had left, and the arrival of Arthur’s parents from Adelaide the following morning had brought out a determination that had sunk itself decisively into the kiss he had stolen the first moment they had been alone after meeting them. She would not quickly forget the way his fingers had closed around her shoulders, or the way he had stepped into her - until her hands had met the front of his desk – as though he could draw strength just from touching her. If it had been any other day, she might have teased him for it, but as it was, he had gone on as though nothing at all had happened.

 

“I’m not sure why you let me _drive_ , then,” she played now, instead. 

 

“Well, I knew there’d be another head in peril if I tried to stop you.” 

 

She chuckled, “I do love an intelligent man.” 

 

The turn of his head was slight, lingering on the sound of that word on her lips, and the softness of the action made Phryne want to say it again. Of all the stories of ghosts she’d heard in the past days, the one of his lips pressed so urgently against hers was undoubtedly the most vivid. 

 

The same determination that had driven that kiss had meant that the interviewing of Mr Taylor had been pressed forward from a ‘convenient’ Thursday to the more insistent ‘today’, and she had no doubt that whatever time Jack would have for the man’s sufferings, it would take a back seat to his increasing fight for poor Arthur Johns. 

 

If there was a connection, he would find it. If not – in honesty, she wouldn’t allow the thought. 

 

“Good afternoon. Inspector?” came a warm voice from behind the fly screen, as the door opened. 

 

“Mrs Partridge? This is my associate, Miss Phryne Fisher. She’s a detective assisting the constabulary with its enquiries,” Jack replied. 

 

“Yes, please do come in,” she immediately opened the door, “Mr Taylor is in his study.”

 

They entered with a quiet respect, and the housekeeper closed the door behind them, moving down the entrance hall towards a study at the end of the corridor, “We’ve just heard the announcement from Arthur Johns’ parents on the wireless.” She hesitated, “It’s been a difficult morning.”

 

“Thank you for understanding our urgency,” Jack replied. 

 

“I think Henry really wants to help, if he can,” Mrs Partridge said, “but bringing the whole incident up is hard on him. Go easy on him, if you can?”

 

“Of course,” Jack’s voice was tinged with a compassion that could not leave him. 

 

The study was dark by all normal standards, the sunlight they’d avoided held at bay by heavy curtains for the most part. In every other measure it was immaculately kept, the desk so well arranged that it appeared as though a measuring stick had been employed to make sure the objects on it were practically equidistant. As Phryne and Jack entered, and eyesight began to adjust, it was clear that the shelves – lined with books on any number of antiques – were as fastidiously managed; a small box of library cards on the blotter indicated just how fastidiously. 

 

Henry Taylor had been seated near the window, and stood as soon as his guests arrived, apologising for the darkness and extending a hand in greeting. He seemed perfectly healthy, a strong build for his age – which Phryne guessed to be in the mid-sixties, and a crop of thick, grey hair, indicating every hope of physical well-being. It was not what either expected of the invalid who had seemed so difficult on the other end of the telephone. “The sunlight,” he explained the curtains, “it can be so invasive on days like this, and I’m afraid I won’t be much use if I fall prey to a headache.”

Jack found the explanation as reasonable as he’d found Reginald Winslow’s on wall-licking, and yet both still seemed too extraordinary to simply accept. 

 

“Thank you for seeing us, Mr Taylor,” Phryne said, “as I’m sure you can understand, we’re very anxious to learn what we can to help Arthur Johns.” 

 

“Yes, yes, of course,” he gestured at two chairs on the other side of his desk, “Please, sit down. If you don’t mind, I’d like to have Mrs Partridge with me?”

 

“Not at all,” Jack allowed. 

 

They all sat, and silence settled. 

 

Where did one begin, really? 

 

“Mr Taylor,” Jack tried, forging ahead as Phryne had known he would, “as I mentioned to Mrs Partridge on the telephone: in the course of our investigation of recent events in Monterrey, it has come to our attention that you might have information… pertinent to our enquiries.”

 

Henry breathed deeply, “Yes, she said so. Honestly, Inspector, I’m not sure - ”

 

“We need to know about Mountbatten,” Jack ran it off at the pass, refusing to allow the man the out. 

 

What he saw on Henry’s face was not resistance, per se, but immediate anxiety.

 

“Yes.” He paused before getting up from his chair and pacing to the window. “It’s funny,” he began, “thirty years of treatment, and it’s still impossible to talk about.”

 

Another pause. 

 

“Mr Taylor, we understand it must be difficult,” Phryne soothed.

 

“Do it for Arthur,” Jack finished, his tone neither bullying nor manipulative, but straight nonetheless. Phryne glanced over at him as he eradicated small talk for the meat of the matter, refusing to tread too lightly. It was a peculiar talent of his, a decidedly attractive trait that managed to confront an issue directly and somehow still clothe it in abject respect.

 

Jack simply kept his sights on the man at the window.

 

Henry swallowed. “All I can tell you is what I saw,” he said. 

 

“That’s all we’re asking.” 

 

He turned back around and met the gauntlet that had been laid down, feeling the challenge, and the invitation to rise to it. 

 

“Any information might prove important at this stage,” Phryne encouraged, noting that the firmer hand was working, but offering a safe space nonetheless. His eyes drifted over to her, and he sighed. 

 

It came slowly at first, but as he began to speak, the words seemed to string themselves together. 

 

“I’d been an Auctioneer’s Inspector… about ten years - the auction house had… hired me straight out of the History Department at the university. They were looking for someone skilled with dating, authentication… I’d earned my stripes doing some research for one of the Professors in Regency pieces. It was an invaluable skillset for an auction house whose business was dealing with failing family fortunes, and old heirlooms,” it was nostalgic, a life that he had clearly spent some time grieving. 

 

The pair let him talk. 

 

“The… Lady of the House had been dead fifteen years, but because of the irregularity of the owner’s disappearance, it took some time for it to come to auction. It wasn’t until the relatives brought in a new lawyer that there was even momentum enough to have Lord Cavanaugh declared absent in the maintenance of the property, giving the Courts room to discharge it to the family for appropriate management.” 

 

Phryne watched as his shoulders clenched upward, and his breath shook as he clearly fought back his urge for silence. 

 

“It seemed a simple enough job,” he recalled, “largely typical items, except for Lord Cavanaugh’s study – I’d been informed he was an explorer of some nature, and that the contents of his collection were likely looking at being presented to a museum. It wasn’t until two weeks into the job that they asked me to do a preliminary evaluation of the room, at all, and account for rough estimates. I’d informed them right off the bat that it would be impossible without a trained expert in antiquities, and exotic artefacts.”

 

The anger of blame was clearly still present. 

 

“What happened on the night you left, Mr Taylor?” Phryne encouraged, and Jack felt it as though she’d stepped up beside him - it was always a heady experience. 

 

His breath was a rush of air, then, and he looked to the ground as his features crunched in on themselves. His hand shook much as Josephine Randall’s had. “I – uh – “ another rushed breath, “I - I’m sorry.” 

 

“Take your time, Henry,” Mrs Partridge sat forward in her chair for the first time, “just breathe.” 

 

He seemed to regain some measure of control at her words before he nodded and stepped forward to take his seat. “It’s been harder with the news,” he explained, clearly trying to speak. 

 

Jack’s brow had settled into a distinct frown, and he looked at Phryne for the first time since they’d sat down. Whatever he had thought of the man’s delicacy, he recognised in his movements a familiar sort of trauma – the sort of thing he’d seen in dozens who had been to war. Phryne felt the same, and again the intrigue of ghostly legends became a reality of horror, and moved into a distinct unsettling about just what was going on at Mountbatten Hall. 

 

After a moment, Henry had clenched his fist into an illusion of control, and seemed ready to speak once more. “I was taking inventory of the study,” he started again, “moving through, artefact by artefact, and examining each for origin, cross-checking with the ledger Lord Cavanaugh kept. I’d just finished examining an Oriental tea set – a Ming Dynasty beauty, early fifteenth century; it had a small chicken motif. Extraordinary. I – I heard a noise in one of the… upstairs bedrooms… The house was supposed to be empty, you see, and expressly under lock and key during the evaluation. Anyway, I – I called out from downstairs -”

 

“What time was this?” Jack asked. 

 

Henry looked at him incredulously, “I’m not sure I could tell you, Inspector?” 

 

Jack tilted his head, “And yet you can remember a fifteenth-century chicken motif?” 

 

A small smile, “It’s the extraordinary that stands out, Inspector, even when the ordinary is most important.” 

 

It wasn’t the ideal response. 

 

“I called out from downstairs,” Henry continued, “and heard nothing, so I was about to turn back to my work when it happened again. This time, though, I was convinced it sounded like – footsteps.” He stopped the shake returning as he closed his eyes. 

 

“Still coming from upstairs?” Phryne asked quietly. 

 

Henry nodded, “I thought it might be the groundskeeper, Harcourt – he was angry about the sale, and he’d already argued with the lawyer about it. I thought he might have snuck in to liberate some of his Master’s property. So – I – I went up the… stairs.”

 

Again he stopped, and his jaw clenched shut as the story threatened nearness to being told. Jack took a steady breath in, clearly feeling his impatience despite his sympathy. They waited nonetheless. 

 

“As soon as I hit the landing, I knew something wasn’t right,” he forced out, his voice now taught, “the air was – thick, cloying. I couldn’t breathe – ” he shut his eyes as though trying to recall, “I waited for a long time and just tried to focus. I was - I was afraid. I’d heard rumours about the place, and I don’t care how rational you are, when you’re there… All I could hear for a time was the sound of my own breathing in the dark. I finally plucked up the courage to call out, but there was no response. It was strange, I felt the urge to check the Master Bedroom, like I was – summoned.”

 

Jack’s brow raised instantly despite himself, and Phryne felt the blow that it struck to Henry’s credibility. 

 

“The air was so sweet, though, like it was fevered, I couldn’t think straight…” he tried to collect, “when I got to the bedroom it - it was empty.” 

 

He opened his eyes, and all momentum in the story ceased. He looked up at Phryne and Jack. 

 

A moment passed.

 

“And - ?” Phryne finally pressed, not caring to hold it simply for the suspense. 

 

Henry looked confused, “And? And what?”

 

“And what happened next?” Jack pressed. 

 

The older man looked stricken, “I – I don’t know, Inspector. I haven’t been able to recall - not at all - I thought you knew that, I - ”

 

Phryne had rarely seen Jack truly angry, his emotions so keenly balanced and impeccably maintained, but she could feel the escalation to apoplectic that set itself squarely in his shoulders as he tried again, “Mr Taylor, thirty years of your life vanished before your eyes because of that night - and you recall nothing but an empty bedroom?” 

 

Henry heard the implication, and shame blossomed on his face, thirty years of that familiar look in someone else’s eyes - his wife, his employer. His clenched fist began to shake with emotion, and his features constricted, “It’s never been clear, it’s always the same nebulous – “

 

“Two men are dead, and a boy is _missing,”_ Jack’s voice finally raised.  


“I know,” he tried to defend, “I’m sorry. I’m so - ” 

 

Phryne’s hand had immediately clenched around Jack’s wrist, squeezing tight against what she knew he felt, her own disbelief descending simultaneously. 

 

“Mr Taylor,” she focused the conversation, “why did the auction never go ahead?” 

 

The question diverted so neatly from the trauma, from the failing he had lived with for so many years, it shocked the man into silence. He breathed, and Jack took a moment to do the same. 

 

“As far as I heard, the family withdrew,” he offered, “I couldn’t tell you why.”

 

“And your evaluation of the study,” she asked, “how far into it were you when this all occurred?”

 

He frowned in thought, venturing into a space he had never thought to go, “I was close to the end, it was the reason I was there so late, I thought I could finish.” 

 

“And there was nothing unusual in your inspection to that point?” 

 

“Like what?” 

 

“Any items of unusual value, or –“

 

“Miss Fisher, they were _all_ unusual items. The ledger was full – “

 

The ledger.

 

A new line of question opened up suddenly before her, “Nothing was unaccounted for? In the ledger?” 

 

Henry stopped once more, “Nothing that I had noticed. But my inspection wasn’t yet concluded, I was interrupted. I was interrupted.” It was like a light switching on, and when he looked up, it was with the shock of that illumination - any new angle was more forthcoming than the tangle of thoughts that had hounded him for so long. “It was kept in the bureau behind the desk, locked at all times when I was there.” 

 

He blinked.

 

“Mr Harcourt kept the key.” 

 

***

 

“I’m sorry,” Phryne said as they left the house to return to the Hispano, her voice reflecting on the tension in Jack’s shoulders. 

 

“Don’t be,” came his immediate reply, “you were right.” 

 

“Oh, I know _that_ ,” she stopped him, forcing him to look at her with a mere comment. He did so, interrupting his frustration, and unconsciously allowing her to speak her next straight through him, “But I’m sorry for the _strain_ nonetheless.” 

 

It soothed, and Jack eyed her with a smile as they fell in step once more. “It’s true I like my lines straight,” he reflected even as his steps still strode forward with his characteristic surety, “why look at X, when A to B will do.”

 

“I know,” she empathised, “and this really is the definition of ‘X’. Still, there does seem to be a more solid trail developing, however eccentric the story surrounding it.”

 

“I would be lying if I said my reservations about that story weren’t still in full force,” he said.

 

“And I would expect nothing less,” she replied. “What remains true, however, is that regardless of Mr Taylor’s thoughts on our ghost, there remains a great deal to be said about Mr Harcourt.”

 

“Yes,” Jack frowned, “it’s a bizarre crime that relies on the evidence of a different story to find its resolution.” 

 

“But isn’t that the very fashion of ghosts,” Phryne said, “finding some new means of saying something when their voices are lost?” 

 

He glanced at her, always shifted by the beauty of what she sometimes revealed - complex and intuitive.

 

“And what do we expect to find in the ledger?” he finally pressed. 

 

“I’m sure I have no idea,” she returned to her brightness, “but it does seem a jot more satisfying than ghouls creaking through the floorboards.” 

 

He finally offered up a full smile as he pulled open the Hispano’s driver’s-side door. It was a reminder that her scepticism - while open - was still present, and that where there was difference, there was still continuity of thought. Phryne moved passed him with her own smile, one foot pausing on the step-up as her thoughts stumbled across a mystery halfway towards her seat. Leaning a hand on the door, and one on the upholstery, she turned to face him as he stood dutifully clutching the handle. The extra height brought her delightfully close as she tilted her head in thought. 

 

“It does seem strange for a groundskeeper to be _quite_ so devoted to his Master’s belongings, especially since Lord Cavanaugh seemed to have abandoned him,” she mused. 

 

“As you said before, there does appear to be a trail developing, however eccentrically,” he was not strictly focussing on what she was saying, the smell of her perfume playing delightful tricks on his senses.

 

“Unfortunately, it’s all driving us _back_ to Mountbatten,” she agreed, almost apologetically as she felt the undercurrent of his distraction, “and our crime scene seems to be expanding from room to room.” 

 

Jack met her gaze.

 

“Honestly,” he replied, “I’m surprised I’ve managed to tear you away for this long - when Dr Winslow formally requested access to the house, I was sure you were behind it.” 

 

Phryne grinned, “Is that why you agreed?” 

 

His smile was soft, and infuriatingly enigmatic - she knew she’d never have answer out of him here, in broad daylight. 

 

She went after the next best curiosity, “What makes you think I wasn’t?”

 

“What?” 

 

“Behind it?” 

 

A chuckle as he teased, “The fact that you’re here with _me_ , instead of up to your ears in twine and exorcised salt.”

 

“Nonsense,” she still leant on the door, refusing to move, “you know I can’t resist _you_ \- not _even_ for twine and exorcised salt.” 

 

His kiss refused to be anything other than candid about what was between them, and Phryne once again felt the assurance of it right down to her bones - she was grateful for the surety of her grip on the door. She could have spent the rest of their afternoon in that one moment. 

 

“S hould I be worried that I’m going to return and discover my crime scene has been completely compromised?” he finally asked, “You _were_ supposed to be keeping an eye on him, after all.”

 

“It’s hardly my fault you’re a relentless distraction,” Phryne answered with her most persuasive tone, “and I can guarantee that he’s is under strict instructions not to tamper with evidence, and in the _best_ hands.” 

 

***

 

“What the bloody hell is this rubbish, anyway?” Albert Johnson complained bitterly beneath a heavy box of intricate equipment.

 

“Damned if I know,” whispered Cecil Yates, more conscious that Dr Winslow might hear him, “Miss Fisher just said that the doc was helping with the investigation into that lost kid.” 

 

“I’m not sure what a ruddy thermometer in the Drawing Room is going to tell us about the window upstairs,” Bert refused, “seems like poppycock to me.” 

 

Cec shrugged, “Can’t hurt though, can it?” 

 

Bert didn’t have an answer for that, “Doesn’t stop it from being a bloody waste of time.”

 

“It’s a mite better than doing nothing, though, isn’t it?” came a voice from the stairs, Dr Winslow seemingly unfazed by the derision of his expertise, and focussed on the unravelling of a series of wires as he descended to the first landing. They belonged to a device, which looked rather more like something that might belong to a Martian than something that might deliver definitive results on anything of importance. 

 

Bert placed the box down in the entrance hall, and fixed a dissatisfied look on his face - they’d been at it for a good two hours at least, and there seemed to be a never-ending supply of strange and wonderful things to be drawn on for evidence. Of what, neither he nor Cec could be sure. He eyed the doctor with the series of questions that lay beneath his steady derision. 

 

Winslow had yet to look at him. 

 

“I can feel you thinking, Mr Johnson, so you might as well ask.”

 

Cec remained safely behind the task of taking his collection of scopes to the Dining Rooms as instructed. 

 

“All right,” Bert said, unafraid to make his concerns heard, “what’s the point of that, then?”

 

Reginald blinked.

 

“It’s a Spirit Radio,” he said, as though it explained everything. Bert seemed to grow more irate by the second. “It was designed by Nikolai Tesla,” Winslow continued, noting that his listener was unimpressed, “to pick up alternate wavelengths from the Herzian waves we use to produce sound on the wireless.” 

 

Bert shifted, growing uncomfortable at the use of the word ‘Herzian’, despite his respect for Russian scientists generally. 

 

“It records sounds that we can’t _hear_ ,” the doctor clarified, “and Psychic Researchers have been investigating its use in detecting objects, and perhaps beings beyond the immediate human experience.” 

 

“Like what?” Bert pressed. 

 

“Oh, any number of things - aha!” he finally managed to work through a particularly frustrating knot, “but oftentimes, it presents us with potentially ghostly conversations.” 

 

He smiled at him, as though what he had said was not upsetting in the least. 

 

“Conversations about what?” Bert looked suddenly upward, almost furtively, betraying his hardened exterior. 

 

“Oh, it’s hard to know, really - I’m certain sometimes that it’s gibberish. Tesla himself admitted that it could just be frequency, although he also admitted to being completely unsettled by the discovery when he first listened to the results in his laboratory late one night. Alone.” 

 

“Seems to me to be the right environment for a hair-raising discovery,” came another voice from the door, sceptical as it was bright. 

 

“Right you are, Mr Butler,” Winslow pointed at him with a scientific forefinger, and went back to arranging the device on the top step, “and I do hope those are sandwiches -- I just love cucumber and relish.” 

 

“Mayonnaise, Doctor,” the butler corrected, “but I shall bear that in mind. And are we expecting Voices from the Beyond right away, or is there time for tea?”

 

“Good sir,” Dr Winslow seemed outraged, “there is _always_ time for tea.”

 

*~*~*


	6. All the Better to Hear You With

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, with some clues forthcoming, the investigation seems to be taking on a more corporeal character - that is until Dr Winslow reveals something entirely upsetting.

_“_ _Ghosts!—They exist, they exist! Dead things playing at being alive_ _.”_

_(_ Arthur Schnitzler _)_

 

~*~*~

 

“Whatever else we learn from this, it has certainly reinforced my belief that Lord Cavanaugh was a _fascinating_ individual,” Phryne announced, leaning over Jack’s shoulder and analyzing the contents of the worn, but meticulous ledger laid out on his desk. 

 

“Half of these place names sound fictional,” Jack agreed. 

 

“And rather far-flung, if the Islas Azores and Lima are true markers,” she said, “even now, the explorers I know tend to be experts in specific regions, but Lord Cavanaugh’s adventures seem to have taken him all over the planet.” 

 

The sound of diversion in her voice made Jack smile, “If the man wasn’t gone, or at least eighty-five, I might be threatened by how much that impresses you.”

 

She smirked, even as she refused to take her eyes off of the task at hand, “If this is an accurate curriculum, I’m not sure his advanced age would prove such a reliable hindrance to my admiration.”

 

Jack turned the page, as though _that_ might dissuade her.

 

“According to the records we retrieved from the auction house, Taylor’s report aligned item for item, but remained unfinished, leaving these last three pages unchecked,” he said. 

 

“Which means that whatever we’re looking for, they’re the best place to begin,” Phryne’s tone betrayed that she knew well enough how impossible that might be without some guidance.

 

“You must have had some idea what that was,” Jack queried, “when you asked him about it?”

 

“Honestly, it was his comment about Walter Harcourt,” she said, analyzing the new page’s contents, “he was angry about _something_ , and Henry seemed to imply it was related to Lord Cavanaugh’s possessions. It seems quite coincidental that Henry had been working on the house extensively without incident, with things growing _suddenly mysterious_ only when the study was involved. Perhaps his sudden exit was more plan than phantom?” 

 

Jack paused. 

 

“So, Harcourt preys on Taylor’s fears to get him to leave the study alone?” it was such a logical sequence of thoughts in the scheme of things, and Jack turned his attention back to looking at her. She shrugged, feeling the awkwardness of the suggestion as he said it aloud -- a suggestion dependent on so many variables, they were difficult to count. Jack felt the presence, then, of his ongoing concern, “But what does that have to do with Gilbert Rodgers?” 

 

The sound of it drew a pang from Phryne, and she met his gaze with an affectionate sympathy. “If he was intent on keeping snoopers out of the house then,” she offered as conjecture, “perhaps he’s still protecting his master’s collection now?” 

 

The suggestion was a cold one, a shiver-inducing sickness that wanted to blossom at the thought that Gilbert might be dead simply for having been curious. 

 

It seemed too cruel for words. 

 

“It’s certainly a connection,” Jack’s voice dimmed immediately at the possibility, “but it’s a hefty jump from pranks to murder.” 

 

“And it seems rather odd for a man to go to his grave terrified of a ghost he’d invented,” she agreed.

 

It drew a sigh from Jack as they seemingly reached another cold, dead end. 

 

Its persistence was remarkable. 

 

He leaned back into his chair, and Phryne turned to lean slightly against his desk. The room settled into a quiet that caught her up for a moment, remembering the heat of their banter two days before. Where they had been so alive with two viable solutions, they now stalled in mutual frustration. It was a natural juxtaposition, she supposed, and though it felt a vaguely inappropriate moment for the thought, she couldn’t help being somewhat sentimental about it. 

 

She had long been attracted to their friction, but there was something equally compelling about this place of synchronised struggle. Certainly, they both possessed gifts enough to muddle through the questions on their own, but whatever knots they had each worked out previously, she was convinced it was infinitely more rewarding to work them out together. So much so, it had almost begun to feel necessary. 

 

Her thoughts gave a little hiccup at the word. 

 

She was always reluctant to admit need, alongside all of its implications. Enhancement would have to do for the moment -- yes, they were more together. 

 

She was _better_ with him.

 

“And how exactly would you do it?” Jack’s voice pierced her thoughts. He leaned forward, as though adjusting his position might force the ledger to offer up its secrets, “Taylor was passionate about his career, what on _earth_ could be terrifying enough to force him into leaving it?” 

 

“It would certainly have to go beyond parlour tricks and chopped liver,” it prompted Phryne back to the moment, her instinct to touch him thwarted by his re-engagement with the work. “The kind of trauma I saw in that office doesn’t come from shivers down the back,” she said. 

 

“There must be something here,” Jack pressed on, flipping yet another page, and avoiding the thoughts of broken men who’d lost themselves. 

 

“Perhaps it’s worth another inventory?” she suggested. 

 

A pause.

 

“After thirty years, how can we be sure it’s of any relevance?” he clearly regretted his cynicism, looking up at her apologetically for the briefest beat before her returned to scrutinising the words before him. 

 

“Well, if my protection theory is the best we have to go by - whatever Walter was protecting, maybe it’s still at Mountbatten?” she tried again. 

 

“True,” he continued down the list. 

 

“If we check the remaining items against the contents of the study,” another turn of the page rang out against her thoughts, “we can locate any discrepancies. These records are meticulous, and so are Henry’s, there’s bound to be _something_ to – “ 

 

“Phryne – ” he suddenly interrupted. 

 

The air seemed to stop. 

 

“Look at this,” he followed, the disbelief pressing itself around the moment. 

 

Phryne turned immediately, casting her glance at where his finger rested on the yellowing page. 

 

“Is that - ?” 

 

Her face broke at once into a smile.“It most certainly is,” she agreed, picking up his magnifier and directing it at what appeared to be a smudge where words had once been, and then, _yes_ , “and that is most certainly _not_ Lord Cavanaugh’s handwriting.”

 

In the middle of the page of immaculate records, each item neater than the next, there stood out a crooked alternative, the black arms of its lettering a crude attempt at forgery of the rest. The smudge was in the margin, and all that was left of some previous lettering. Jack wondered momentarily if it was a fingerprint, but he dared not allow his hopes to flare simply because they finally had something to seize on. Phryne, however, had let the possibilities blossom, and as Jack read out the item – a Polynesian child’s doll, circa 1810 – she tried to make sense of it.

 

“It’s clearly an erasure,” she said. 

 

Jack nodded, “And judging from this handiwork and the rest of these pages, it wasn’t a permitted one, either.” 

 

“Cover-up job?” she suggested. 

 

His eyes met hers, and it was with that sense of surety returning at having found an _actual_ clue in amongst the haze, “Somebody was clearly intent on concealing whatever was formerly on this list.”

 

“How do we find out what that was?” she asked. 

 

“It might give Dr MacMillan something to do while she waits on the results of the University’s chemistry experiments,” their eyes met, and the fire was back.

 

She grinned.

***

 

Phryne had left Jack happily instructing constables. They had decided to go ahead with the inventory of the study, which it would take some time, but finally it was a _direction_. She would see if Mac could shed any light on what had been removed from the ledger without destroying the evidence, she was sure the redhead could offer up some impressive little trick to answer the query. On her way to the morgue, however, she made the fatal error of popping back to Wardlow for luncheon. She ought to have _known_ that Aunt Prudence would smell the rat unravelling at Mountbatten within minutes, and her clearly displeased appearance on the front doorstep was testament to the fact. 

 

“Chester Willis is beside himself!” was her opener, and Phryne’s ire was raised at once. 

 

“Yes, well, clearly _he_ has the most at stake in this situation,” she bit out. 

 

“Don’t be snide,” Prudence censured as Phryne let her through the door, “it’s terribly masculine.” 

 

A deep, calming breath, “How is _Frederick_ , Aunt P?” 

 

Her Aunt eyed her, as though to let her know that she was all over her evasive demeanor. _“_ He’s _quiet,_ ” she answered nonetheless, her sympathy showing despite, “he’s grieving, naturally, and will hardly eat what’s put in front of him, and listless.”

 

Having hung up her coat, Phryne smiled softly at the care betrayed in her voice, “Well, both he and his father will be pleased to know that half the Victorian constabulary is out looking for Arthur, and Jack has no intentions of holding Fred responsible.” 

 

Prudence followed her into the parlour, where Mr Butler appeared to enquire after refreshments. Declining for the moment, and hoping she might avoid having to invite Aunt P for luncheon - there really was little time to waste - Phryne turned back to the calculated silence that stood lingering in the doorway. Prudence looked suddenly drawn and unsure, failing to meet her niece’s gaze.

 

Phryne was instantly worried, and guilty at once.

 

“Aunt P?” 

 

“He keeps asking for him,” her aunt said quietly, “For Arthur.”

 

Phryne swallowed, feeling the weight of that guilt descend a little further. She stepped up to the older woman, gently putting a hand on her shoulder and warming her into the room properly to a nearby armchair. 

 

“He’ll be the first to know after Arthur’s parents,” she said, tending to the careful fence she had put around the entire issue. 

 

It was just as well, for Aunt Prudence looked directly at her, then, the ghost of Janey hanging between them: the sleepless nights, sick with worry, the endless trudging, and trudging, and calling her name in the shade of sinister trees. The added coincidence of Arthur’s name made the matter infinitely worse. Of course, Prudence was not one to openly express any of it, and her look was all she would say on the matter, “Well, I don’t doubt the Inspector will be pooling every resource to make sure he is found.” 

 

Phryne nodded gently, barricading her emotions all the more. The fence was one thing, but she had to be sure she could manage the grief, which was always there, and now threatened to come to the boil in the face of her empathy. It was the same reason, she could not allow the frustration she had seen so readily in Jack.

 

“We’re all doing everything we can,” she said, and it was the truth. “Now,” the lady detective pressed, folding her arms insistently, “What’s this _really_ about? Having known Chester Willis for all of five seconds, I find it hard to believe anyone would get overly vexed by such frequent displays of disquiet.” 

 

Prudence looked immediately put out, as though her motives had never before been transparent, even as her demeanour shifted into being found out, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.” 

 

“Reginald Winslow,” Phryne filled in the gap for her. 

 

Aunt Prudence narrowed her eyes at her perception, taking a small moment to decided how coyly she could deny the intent and forge ahead. Phryne had always been intuitive, but the damned _detecting_ was honing her skills to a fine point. Seeing her niece’s resolve, she conceded at once, “All right. I feel bound to warn you – ” 

 

“That he’s a cad and a bounder, and a swindler of the worst kind?” Phryne fed again, clearly enjoying herself at this point. 

 

Prudence’s jaw tightened, and she gave up the game, “Take what he says with a pinch of _salt_ , Phryne. He has a reputation to keep and an agenda to push, his work is being recognised and Scotland Yard is starting to pay a _pretty penny_ for it.”

 

“Replace Scotland Yard with a room of credulous aristrocrats, and you might be talking about Madame Bolkonsky,” Phryne countered, her hand finding her hip.

 

“I won’t have this argument with you again,” Prudence said straightening out the air in front of her as though it would straighten out the disagreement, “I’m simply concerned for the state of the investigation, and the outcome for Frederick.” 

 

“And I’m sure whatever evidence Dr Winslow delivers, it will hardly be the crowning glory of the case,” Phryne once again revealed her neatly-kept skepticism, “but this man knows a fraud when he sees one, and I’d trust his methods over a trained _magician_ any day of the week. Especially since his results will likely be quantifiable, which is precisely what I imagine all the fuss at Scotland Yard is about.”

 

Prudence raised her head rather smugly; as she always did when she was sure she had a superior point, “He _is_ a trained magician.” 

 

Phryne paused, flattening out her features and immediately conceding nothing. 

 

It was something she had clearly overlooked in the long scheme of the good doctor’s resume, and she was sure it was an asset as well as deeply unfortunate choice of comparison on her part, but she had to concede that Prudence had raised an issue of import – she supposed everyone was entitled to it occasionally. Why the doctor would conceal this fact was indeed something of intrigue, and she could hardly dismiss it as irrelevant. 

 

“All right,” she placated instead, “I promise that I will consider it all very carefully.”

 

Prudence was satisfied, though it seemed she wished to press the matter further. She opted instead for another advantage in the moment, a slight sparkle in her eye as she did, “And _should_ you require the services of a very _reliable_ alternative – ”

 

“All right, all _right_ ,” Phryne talked straight over her with a chuckle at once, ushering her back towards the door with the kind of forthrightness that could only exist amongst family members, “don’t push your luck. You know as well as I, after the last time, that if we so much as _mention_ the M word to Jack, he’s likely to throw himself from the nearest parapet.” 

 

“It’s a perfectly respectable practice in most circles,” Prudence forged ahead. 

 

“Yes, well I’m afraid courts of law aren’t quite ‘most circles’.” 

 

***

 

Phryne revealed none of her skepticism to Jack that evening, or when Dr Winslow himself was announced after dinner, a perplexed look sinking into the Inspector’s features as he was midway through explaining the plan to continue the search for Lord Cavanaugh’s missing artefact. Unsurprisingly, nothing remarkable had yet been discovered in the bric a brac on the Baron’s shelves. Instructing Mr Butler to show the Parapsychologist in, Phryne shrugged from her place on the chaise and had to admit some good humour at the doctor’s somewhat peculiar habits. 

 

He did not disappoint. 

 

As he bustled into the parlour with an uncanny energy, and announced he had pertinent evidence, it was from behind a pair of magnifiers attached with some ingenuity to a contraption of unnamable nature that was strapped to his head, and held all manner of what appeared to be scientific apparatus. The result was a rather unsettling magnification of his features that caricatured him all the more, and gave the appearance of a large insect blinking at them excitedly as he spoke.

 

Jack’s beleaguered patience wasted no time in shooting Phryne a weary look.

 

“Good evening, Dr Winslow,” Phryne smiled brightly, pointing subtly to her own head to indicate that there was something the doctor had forgotten, and refusing to be dissuaded, “won’t you have a drink?” 

 

“Dear me, no,” he refused, quickly removing the headpiece with apologetic grin, “I never touch the stuff. Far too compromising. A single drink and a man can find himself in all manner of ridiculous situations.” 

 

“I imagine he can,” Jack agreed, his expression betraying none of his humour at the irony, “what have you got for us, Doctor?” 

 

The brightness returned. 

 

“Nothing definitive,” he said, stopping as though that was all that was needed. 

 

Phryne was forced to stifle her laugh, taking a sip of her own dangerous beverage to avoid any further silent commentary from her paramour. 

 

“I’m sure you’ll enlighten us as to its significance,” Jack felt every bit of her abdication. 

 

“Oh, of course,” Reginald pressed forward, placing a large case on the coffee table, and talking as he opened it to retrieve something, “the initial analysis of the incoming data is refusing to allow any strong conclusions, it is _quite_ thrilling.” 

 

“Thrilling?” Phryne’s brows raised, despite her smile. 

 

“Oh yes! We’ve had dramatic shifts in temperature through the night, and a number of my more ingenious triggers have yielded a photograph or two, though they’re still to be developed,” his eyes brightened, “and then, there’s _this_.”

 

He pulled out of the case a large, black record, and Phryne’s brows raised in interest. 

 

“I’m assuming that’s not an illegal recording of Sonny Clay's Plantation Orchestra,” Jack offered wryly, taking a sip of his drink. 

“If it was,” Reginald answered, “do you think I’d be daft enough to bring it to a policeman?” He pointed to Phryne’s gramophone, casting a request for permission at her. 

 

She nodded, “Please.” 

 

He moved across the room with the same bounce still in his step, speaking as he went, “Now, making use of some of the advancements in the motion picture industry, we’ve only really been able to record snippets of rather questionable quality - I doubt Cecille B. DeMille will be after us in a hurry - _but_ , occasionally we come across… some real gems.” 

 

He gingerly placed the needle onto a specific part of the record, clearly observed in his closer analysis of it, and stepped back as though he were waiting for magic to unfold.

 

As matter of fact, Phryne was not sure it didn’t. 

 

At first, there was a hissing buzz of pure silence, like the kind she was used to when a record had ceased to play, but it drew her up in her seat, listening closely, intently. It lasted an extended moment, and Jack had to admit that his own curiosities were piqued as he stepped up behind her, his hand coming to rest on the back of the chaise. 

 

And then, they heard it. 

 

A mumble, low and almost indiscernible, as though someone were speaking through the walls of a less than reputable hotel - but undoubtedly there, and growing gradually louder until it was clear there was a second voice, communicating with the first, bubbles of sound that were still not coherent, but undoubtedly back and forth. 

 

Phryne felt a shiver down her spine, and Dr Winslow was beaming from ear to ear. 

 

“And the pièce de resistance,” he whispered. 

 

Suddenly, in the midst of nothing, five words became suddenly discernible, tense and menacing, and hissed as though through a vicious whisper that was undoubtedly feminine, _“You should not be here.”_  

 

It was followed by a rough crackling, and the needle hopping from it’s place and bumping into the more familiar feedback of the end of a recording. Phryne had jumped at the sound, and let out the breath she had been holding with a huff of shock, blinking before she shot a glance of pure amazement at the doctor.

 

“I told you,” his eyes were wild with intrigue, “thrilling.” 

 

Jack was quiet, his frown locked into disbelief as he pondered what he had heard, “And nothing conclusive.”

 

Dr Winslow looked up at him, “Correct! Which is why I believe the matter requires further investigation.”

 

Jack was immediately resistant, “Doctor, I permitted this little exercise because you assured my that a few tests would be all that was necessary.” 

 

Phryne gathered what little she could of the debate that had obviously gone on to allow the set-up at the house. 

 

“Yes, Inspector,” Reginald defended, “but _this_ is quite beyond anything I expected to uncover there. I’m afraid I can’t be sure of _what_ we’re looking at here. If it is a fraud, it’s a damnably good one.” 

 

“This investigation is into the murder of two men, and the disappearance of a _child_ ,” Jack repeated, as though no one seemed to be listening to the fact, no matter how many times he said it. Phryne immediately raised a hand to place it over his, which had grown tense against the upholstery. 

 

“Of course, Inspector,” Reginald offered with a deference that was becoming of him, “which is why _every opportunity_ should be taken to get to the bottom of it.” His conclusion was shocking, forceful despite his respect, a tone that was clearly born out of years of being dismissed in his science. 

 

Phryne felt the twitch of Jack’s fingers in hers. 

 

“How can you be sure that your activities won’t compromise the investigation?” she interjected to avoid an argument. 

 

Winslow still kept eye contact with Jack.

 

“What I’m proposing, need not put any burden on police efforts, and properly overseen, will in no way compromise the area.” The two detectives remained silent, simply waiting for him to finish. He seemed suddenly nervous, and Phryne recognised that what was coming would obviously be a hard sell. “And I’ve made another discovery that might… warrant police involvement. Someone was in the house last night.” 

 

“What?” Jack snapped, unsure why the man had opened with _nonsense_ first; he stepped around the chaise towards him, and Reginald immediately lifted his hands in surrender. 

 

“Let me explain,” he all but yelped. “In order to maintain the integrity of our investigations, we take careful steps to ensure there is no corporeal activity in the vicinity - we lay down salt on the floors, twine across the doorways, things that would easily indicate the presence of person who might upset the data.” 

 

Jack’s jaw was locked, even as he kept himself in place.

 

“The twine coming from the billiard room was broken, and the salt disturbed,” the doctor finished. 

 

“Why didn’t you come forward with the information _immediately_?” Jack tried. 

 

“The Constabulary has men outside the house,” Phryne interjected steering the conversation back to the point that had just been raised, “how on earth could someone have entered without being noticed?” 

 

Dr Winslow stared at them both, unsure which to answer. Jack breathed, and nodded his head to Phryne’s question, recognising that it would move things _forward_.

 

“It’s a large house,” Reginald shrugged, “with enough know-how, I’ve no doubt someone could have slipped from the Eastern bushes and in through the billiard-room window.” 

 

There was a heavy silence, and Jack shut his eyes in irritation at the possible misstep. 

 

“My men will be securing the scene first thing in the morning,” he finally intoned, “and if evidence is compromised, Winslow, I will be holding you personally responsible. We had men there all afternoon, and you said nothing?” 

 

“I didn’t notice,” the man actually flushed, “not until your men had cleared away, and I went back to finalise some additional set-up. I saw it from the stairs. I assumed it could have been one of the constables, but I realised that was an assumption no one could afford at this juncture.”

 

Again, the reasonable explanations poured forth. Jack breathed out his frustration. 

 

“There’s only one way to know for certain what caused it,” Reginald put forward into the tension, a glimmer of hope, a solution. 

 

“Your proposal,” Phryne finished for him, her voice reserved. 

 

“Yes,” the doctor offered, his shoulders raised almost to his ears. 

 

“Which is?” Jack asked. 

 

“A sit-in,” it rang out against the still bumping of the gramophone. 

 

Phryne met Jack’s gaze, knowing full well what he would think of the idea, but having to hand it to Dr Winslow his ingenious little finagling. 

 

“A sit-in?” came the Inspector’s scepticism. 

 

“We stake out the house, you for a possible perpetrator - ”

 

“And you for the delightful Lady Cavanaugh,” Phryne concluded again. 

 

Winslow just nodded, unable to conceal his excitement at the thought. Jack tried desperately not to hold it against him, realising that this was the man’s bread and butter, a discovery that he had invested much time in. Phryne would not deny the sense of anticipation the whole proposition aroused, and the reality was that it was a more than sensible investigative approach. She looked to Jack, who seemed put upon, but equally cornered by the facts.

 

At least this was a lead that didn’t _only_ go bump in the night. 

 

They said nothing to each other, and yet Jack and Phryne might have had an entire discussion for what passed between them. 

 

“All right,” Jack eventually conceded, “a ‘sit-in’.” Reginald’s face exploded into joy, and his energy spiked even as it was clear he was trying to glue himself to the spot. “Tomorrow night,” Jack clipped, making his authority clear. “Senior Constable Collins will be with you at _all times_ , Doctor, and - ” he couldn’t believe he was about to say this, “Miss Fisher and I will accompany you.”

 

*~*~*


	7. A Touch of Discombobulation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sit-in is not at all what Phryne and Jack had anticipated, but the reality is ever more shocking than anyone's imaginings.

_“_ _[O]nce the initial step is made into the supernatural, there is no turning back, no knowing where the strange road leads except that it is quite unknown and quite terrible.”_

_(_ Richard Matheson, ‘Slaughterhouse’, _Collected Stories, Vol. 2)_

 

~*~*~

 

“What, no cottage pie?” Jack teased from his perch against the banister at the bottom of the staircase. 

 

“It would be a lie to say I expected down time enough for a _picnic_ ,” Phryne parried, her pacing across the entrance hall carpet indicating a distinct element of _boredom_ as she all but collapsed onto a wooden bench that he was sure was just for display. 

 

The great eaves of Mountbatten soared above them, and the house hung in impressive darkness as a result of their intention to avoid alerting any potential intruders to their presence. They had been advised by Dr Winslow that ghosts were similarly dissuaded by the light, and so all were subject to the scant moonlight peeking through to the inner halls from the broad, dining-room windows. Even Jack had to admit that the effect of the night, glinting off of exotic and unfamiliar figures, struck an image that unsettled the mind; the grotesque faces of ceremonial masks were enough to send a shiver through anyone, even _without_ a heady superstition. He imagined three young boys, creeping anxiously through the corridors, none of them aware that only one would walk away.

 

It chilled, even as he jested, and the portrait of Lady Cavanaugh continued to hold a steady dominion over the room, as though to remind him. 

 

The large, grandfather clock read a quarter to twelve, however, and _still_ nothing had happened -- not so much as a creak in the general nightly expansion one expected from these houses. It was disappointing, despite Jack’s skepticism about both ghosts and the return of any intruder from two nights before. The air hung with a stale sort of half-hearted expectation, failing more soundly by the minute. 

 

“Would that I could conjure you a little entertainment,” he reflected lightly as though to cheer the moment into waking, “but I’m afraid I left my cheesecloth and egg-whites at home. Besides, I thought that the ‘sitting’ in a ‘sit-in’ was implied.”

 

Even in the dark, he could feel her narrowing gaze. 

 

“Carry on with that attitude, and there’ll be a substance more corporeal than _ectoplasm_ coming from your nose _,”_ she bit, and he could feel her tone clutching at him across the distance, cheeky despite the feigned antagonism. 

 

He chuckled, pressing off of the banister and stepping toward her as though his feet simply had no choice, “If it’s a change of attitude you require, I’m sure we could find a nearby coat-closet and reminisce over our _last_ act of entrapment…” It was a wondering step that approached her now, however, a drifting between them without the clutching speed of uncertainty and need – a precious security. 

 

“I’m all ears, Inspector,” she answered, nonetheless, even as he stopped a few feet from her. 

 

As though to mark the unrushed surety of their connection, his gaze wondered once more upward, inspecting all the more closely in the quiet. “It _is_ an intimidating prospect,” he said, “I’ll grant the local legend-makers that.” 

 

Phryne watched him from her place, ignited by the side of him that threatened to wax philosophical, even as he seemed unlikely to follow through on his more immediate promise. She would never dismiss this side of him, which appeared in the most extraordinary circumstances, and _always_ lead somewhere equally delicious. “There’s something about ‘intimidating prospects’,” she fed, “they do seem to attract men of daring.”

 

“For good or ill,” Jack agreed, albeit rather sensibly. 

 

She finally followed his glance, where the same eerie glow of the moon seeped through countless other spaces, blue and enchanting from bedroom doorways, “I’ll admit I find it more romantic than intimidating.” 

 

It was a subtle and intriguing admission, and Jack turned to admire her in that thought, “Romantic?”

 

A pause as she thought it through. 

 

“There’s always an air of sadness to these places, to my mind,” she responded, keeping her eyes for the shadows as she considered more than just _this_ country house, “and something particularly melancholy about the figure of a woman trapped between death and sinister infamy.” The silence settled once more, and the sparking, restrained energy of her earlier pacing was somehow managed into reflection, “I wonder that anyone will remember what poor Lady Cavanaugh was actually like.” 

 

Jack watched her a moment more, and could not help himself, “My _God_ , I love you.”

 

Phryne blinked, the change in direction turning her about to smile at him, warm and delighted, “Was it the bit about ‘intimidating prospects’?”

 

His softened face did not change, even as his eyes smiled, “More romantic than intimidating.” 

 

The man had a gift; every part of her felt light at once, as though she were the apparition they were seeking instead of the body she was used to. “Do you know, you astound me more by the minute, Jack Robinson,” she confessed.

 

It was a discussion perhaps better had elsewhere - romantic or no, haunted houses were hardly the usual fare - but he supposed that their relationship had been far from conventional from the beginning. 

 

Nonetheless, there would be time for such admissions later and the stagnating night pressed in once more.

 

“I suppose we should have guessed our intruder would be unlikely to march confidently back into a house full of policeman,” Jack turned his attention away from the moment, however reluctantly. 

 

It threw her not a bit, and without hiccup she countered almost peevishly, “We’re hardly a _houseful_.”

 

“And we’re certainly not all _policeman_ ,” came another voice suddenly from above, its edges far too sharp to suggest anything was left of the romance or its _patience_.

 

“Thank Heaven for that,” Phryne grinned, promptly looking up at the sound of the intrusion, which materialised into Mac, now stopped on the landing as she escaped from the upstairs nursery. The doctor was clearly unimpressed with the turn of events, however, and Phryne immediately commiserated, even as she hoped that the break in the silence might signal something meaningful (or simply _diverting_ ) coming from the other room. 

 

Mac offered a darkly accusatory look. 

 

“Yes, well, I’m not sure I’m that pleased with the alternative _either,_ this evening,” she sniped, trudging down the stairs towards them, “I knew I should have delivered my evidence and been done with it, I should never have let you talk me into this lunacy.” 

 

The fact that her comment was directed at Jack was simply another indicator to Phryne that she had better keep a more possessive eye on her friends, or she risked their seeing in him the many wonderful things she did. 

 

“I take it Dr Winslow’s claims on hard science are a little exaggerated?” Jack asked, a wry smile creasing up his cheek. 

 

“I couldn’t pretend to tell you _what_ Dr Winslow’s claims are,” Mac responded, “but I can tell you that what I saw in that room is unlikely to yield anything more than a mildly entertaining theatrical. You’ll be _shocked_ to know that old country houses have a _strange_ tendency to fluctuate in temperature on unpredictable autumn nights.”

 

Phryne shook her head with an amused tilt, “Perhaps, but they don’t _generally_ have a tendency to issue menacing warnings, do they? Let’s not forget that Reginald’s made no _claims_ at all – he’s simply called for a closer investigation.”

 

“Into what,” Mac clipped, “the effect of salt on hardwood floors?” 

 

Jack huffed a laugh, “Now, now, we’ll never make it through the witching hour at this rate.” 

 

“ _Need I remind you two_ that Dr Winslow is the only one who’s brought forward any viable evidence, so far?” if Phryne was anything other than pleased with the banter between them, it was not immediately obvious. 

 

“Hang on, I brought you a _definitive_ answer to your ledger question,” Mac feigned outrage.

 

“Perhaps, but until we discover what an ‘E’ - blank - ‘e’ - of the ‘M’ – blank, blank – ‘i’ is, and get someone to explain why it’s so controversial, we’re back to square one,” Phryne expressed the reigning frustration. 

 

“The interpretation of the thing is entirely up to you,” Mac said, unwilling to allow anything but continued levity, “you’re the detectives after all.” 

 

“My money’s still on ‘Eye of the’ something,” Jack interjected. 

 

“Magi?” Phryne added. 

 

Mac was not having any of it. “You asked me to tell you what was previously written in that ledger, and I did. It’s hardly an exact science, uncovering the invisible without resorting to Christiean extremes, and it’s hardly cause for _this_ kind of punishment. God, I’d haunt you a thousand _years_ for a chance at a decent _whiskey_.”

 

“Amen to that,” Phryne instantly agreed. 

 

But ‘that’ was where all boredom, and indeed all true _levity_ , could be said to end.

 

All at once, a sound rang out from upstairs, a sound that cut right through the three of them, striking that peculiar timbre that is reserved only for the highest exhilaration or the purest terror, and shattering the entirety of an apparently wasted evening. In a tumbling, bell-like trill, it fell upon them without discrimination, bright and brief, and just sweeping enough to echo through the dark and cavernous hall around them, to make all present question whether they had heard it, and then to turn instantly silent once more. 

 

The looks exchanged were a combination of shock and uncertainty.

 

“Was that - ?” Phryne began. 

 

Mac’s mouth opened to explain, but nothing was immediately forthcoming. 

 

“Collins!” called Jack at once. 

 

“S-sir?” came a less authoritative reply as Hugh appeared tentatively at the bannister of the gallery mezzanine, casting furtive glances around him and poised for action. 

 

“What’s going on up there?” Jack demanded. 

 

“Um, Sir, I - ” his hand tightened on the wood. 

 

“We rather hoped you could tell us!” Dr Winslow appeared, but where others seemed cowed, his face was radiant as he held in his hand a small device that couldn’t be made out from below. “ _Laughter_ , sure as the sky is blue!”

 

“Or black,” Phryne considered, casting her eyes to the grandfather clock. 

 

“I thought it came from downstairs, but if you heard it from up here, then we have an intrigue on our hands, Ladies and Gentlemen!” Winslow gushed. 

 

“The only intrigue here is which serious institution could _possibly_ have bestowed a doctorate on this man,” Mac muttered under her breath, seemingly just for the sake of argument. 

 

“ _Or_ it came from the other side of the gallery,” Jack lowered his voice as well, filling in rather sensibly. He quickly turned to ascend the stairs towards the opposite side of the house. Not one to be outdone in curiosity, Phryne immediately followed him up, keeping her own pertinent observations to herself. “Who’s there?” Jack called into the dark once they had arrived on the landing. 

 

There was silence in response. 

 

It was the same silence that had permeated the place all evening, but it now seemed to hold a secret, and Phryne could not shake the sensation that the blackness, which had seemed so porous before, seemed now impenetrably dark as she looked to the remaining bedrooms. It promoted the feeling of its being charged, almost _alive_. 

 

She shivered despite herself, the ring of what they had all heard now hanging threateningly about her. 

 

“This is Detective Inspector Jack Robinson of the Victorian Constabulary – show yourself immediately, or risk the full force of the - ” Jack’s voice stopped suddenly, his hand coming up to prevent Phryne from moving forward. 

 

“What is it?” she whispered, as though sound were now an offence against some unseen resident. 

 

Jack’s speech too vanished into uncertainty from its gruff authority the moment before, and his feet made no further advance up the stairs.

 

“I thought –“ his hand hovered instinctively over his pistol, “I thought I saw - ” 

 

And with that proposition, that prophetic little utterance, he ushered into the lives of all present – no matter their preconceived notions - the question that would haunt them forever, and leave each one _quite_ changed. 

 

***  


Phryne couldn’t breathe. 

 

Her heart was pounding erratically, driving the air out of her lungs before it could offer any sustenance to the rest of her. Her chest burned with an angry vengeance, and it made her sick to the stomach as she listened to her own desperate gasping. 

 

It was dark. So very dark, and so very _close._

 

She could feel the walls creeping in around her, a gliding approach that could not be stopped even as she fought the images of the smothering outcome and tried to make sense of what was happening about her. Her head drooped in a hazy faint, and she fought for control. 

 

Whe - where on earth was she? 

 

The rise of the stairs had vanished, and only a flat remained beneath her feet. The last thing she could remember was Jack’s warning voice, and yet he was nowhere in sight now.She reached out, jumping sharply as her fingertips collided with an object between her and the wall, catching against her skin as she rubbed up against the grain – _fur_? In a flash, she heard a vicious growling sound, a snarl and – _no_ , a coat! 

 

What?

 

The closeness made sudden sense, and she pressed further until her hand met the cool welcoming of stone no more than a meter away. 

 

A closet. 

 

“Jack?!” she whispered, hoarseness escaping from her throat as though her words had burned it up. 

 

A vivid memory reared up before her: _Jack dashing into the dark with a yell as unseen footsteps thudded across the wooden floor of the mezzanine towards them._

 

There _had_ been someone upstairs! But how had she ended up in the coat closet? 

 

She breathed in deeply, trying to catch it, but the effort only scorched her chest further and finally brought up a cough, growing progressively more violent by the minute. 

 

As though in response, the door to the closet flew open, and a voice commanded in clamoring tones, even as its owner all but stumbled over his service pistol, “Don’t move! Don’t -” As soon as he realised who stood at the end of his weapon, however, he seemed immediately horrified, “Mi- Miss Fisher!?

 

“Hugh?!”

 

“What’re you –“ 

 

***

 

Mac’s head hurt. 

 

Not the dull sort of reminder of the whiskey she had earlier been craving, but the sharp _upsetting_ kind of hurt that she had once encountered in the snow, with Phryne’s face looking down at her in concern. 

 

The blood was the same too. 

 

It was sticky to the touch as she reached behind her head and sought to understand how she had come to be on the floor of this dark and musty room. She could feel the tug of something bound round her feet, and she immediately panicked. As she moved, however, the bonds gave way and she realised she was merely tangled up in some of Dr Winslow’s string, leftovers from the door she had obviously come stumbling through.

 

A door to what? 

She could feel the hefty presence of a large piece of furniture to her left, strident legs indicating that she was possibly in the dining room. They were certainly a great help in getting her to her feet, her dizziness instant as she grasped the trunk of one and struggled to pull herself upright, the throbbing of her blood in her ears dulling out all sounds around her. As she leant on the tabletop, it became quickly apparent by the touch that this was no dining table _at all_ , however, and she recoiled initially, before the action made her feel quite sick, and she pieced together the smooth cushion of velvet – the billiards table.

 

_How?_

 

It didn’t matter. 

 

Even through the incessant thudding in her ears, she heard the rising babble, the scuffle and Phryne’s voice, distraught and desperate, ripping through her thoughts and the conundrum: 

 

“No Hugh! _Don’t_!”

 

A shot cracked through the house with an unparalleled violence, nonetheless.

 

“ _Phryne_?!” the doctor called out at once, as though her mere words could undo the bitter fear that had seized her.

 

_***_

 

Jack’s arms burned with exertion. 

 

He had to get to her, he had to fight free of the vice that held him - he had to _get to her_! 

 

“ _Phry - !_ ” he grunted as he took a punch to the gut, a fist taking advantage of his distraction with all the force of a train and silencing the only thought in his mind. The shadow that had leapt at him like a tiger not a moment before, slipped from his grasp and the same ominous footsteps he had heard on the stair suddenly rushed from the room, leaving the Inspector on his knees amongst the bric-a-brac of yet another child’s bedroom, the white faces of a row of dolls peering down from the mantel in a horror of spectatorship. 

 

His head swam, and he thought it might be from the knock, until he realised too late that his memories weren’t in order. 

 

He was scrambling for the door now, back to the mezzanine to – what? 

 

_A flash of Phryne’s face reared up before him, calling out in terror_.

 

He remembered. 

 

It felt as though the echo of the gun would be heard for centuries to come, and as he coughed and could not stand, he was unsure he would ever hear anything else. 

 

“Phryne!” he reached out for her and the doorframe. 

 

***

 

Phryne was running. 

 

Looking back as her heels pelted hard against the wood; she knew if she stopped it was over. 

 

He was coming. 

 

She had to hide. 

 

He was _coming_. 

 

***

 

Hugh wretched at the taste in his mouth.

 

“Stop right there!” he cried, rearing up with his pistol over the bannister where he had collapsed, and aiming across the dark abyss of the entrance hall below to the other side of the gallery. 

 

The footsteps banged across the wood like hammers, vanishing within a minute. 

 

***

 

Mac could hear a whimpering. 

 

A child.

 

Somewhere a child in amongst the trinkets. 

 

 

***

 

Reginald could not believe it.

 

***

 

Jack’s eyes watered. 

 

As he tried to make his way down the stairs, it was nothing but a haze below, but he was _sure_ he had seen it. 

 

He called out, “Don’t be afraid, I’m coming!” 

 

***

 

Reginald stared at the pendulum in his hand. 

 

It had changed direction for the third time, of that he was certain, for he paid very close attention at seeing it react with such precision. He followed its outlined path with just as much enthusiasm as he could in his stumbling, the slick feeling between his fingers indicating that whatever wound he had sustained was quickly robbing him of consciousness.

 

He forced himself to focus, exhilarated that he was this close. 

 

In all his career,he had never come _this close._

 

***

 

When Phryne awoke, her back ached beyond measure, and her head pounded with the vengeance of a night spent at infinitely more pleasurable pass-times. She could feel angular points digging into her, their ridged corners reaching all the way to her neck. They were nothing, however, to the hardness of the floor, and it was clear that she had been in this position for some time - whatever it was. What it _was_ , was _agony_ as she moved, the feeling returning to sensitive parts of her body. She resolved not to repeat the action with as much vigour ever again, but slowly found herself propped rather informally up against a set of balusters, in front of the outline ofa door resting ajar with only blackness beyond.

 

Her mind sought an explanation, but came up severely wanting. 

 

The only words in her head repeated themselves, _“He is coming. He is coming. He is coming.”_

 

It made no sense at all, and yet felt simultaneouslyas though it were the most important thing. 

 

She reached a gloved hand to her face, rubbing the bridge of her nose to try and clear the matter up, the silence around her offering little further by way of extrapolation. She swallowed, too, and felt a thickness in her throat born of coughing and the kind of hoarseness she reserved for fighting with her father. As her senses began to settle, and the gloom around her adjusted into a greater clarity, she recognised the gallery of Mountbatten Hall, and a distinct unsettling bubbled up within her. 

 

The sit-in.

 

The last she recalled was - 

 

She heard a thud to her left and started, whirling around to face it and finding nothing but the empty upper halls and dizziness. All around her the emptiness made itself felt, and a sick sort of loneliness descended - the same colour blue as the moon through the windows. 

 

She thought, rather oddly, of Lady Cavanaugh. 

 

Wondering these halls without a companion in the world.

 

Doomed to the silence. 

 

It must have been the discussion with Jack, with all its romanticism - “Jack?” she called out.

 

There was no response, and she strained to bring herself to her feet, groaning slightly as the blood returned to her extremities. 

 

She could not tell what time it was, though darkness still held to the Hall like a shroud, and the air lingered in that chill that belonged to the very early morning. She ventured a step to try and orient herself, and it became quickly clear that she was at the far end of the gallery, the door across from where she had been lying opening into a closet of some kind. 

 

“Mac?” she tried, but still nothing answered, and her confusion began to return to the increased thudding of fear about just what had happened. She remembered Hugh’s face, the pistol, “Hugh!” 

 

_“Here,”_ came a sudden whisper from behind her, and Phryne all but leapt as she lurched round to find yet more emptiness. 

 

Her breath had halted, and shook in her lungs. She had heard it. She was certain. 

 

“Who are you?” she demanded instinctively, aggressively at this… _thing_ that threatened her and those she loved, and yet would not show its face. “Who - ?”

 

All at once, the moonlight cast at a distinctive angle through the door at the end of the corridor, slicing across the floor as it moved passed its zenith in the night sky and cut through the window. It felt like an answer, and with it descended a peculiar sense within Phryne that her curiosity would be rewarded just beyond the heavy wood of the door, hanging ajar in just the same tantalising way as the closet to which she had awoken. It was a deep feeling, a… _drawing_ compulsion that made her almost thirst for what was waiting for her. 

 

She took a step without thinking, and within seconds she found her chilled fingers grazing lightly over the brass of the door handle, pushing even as the creak that resounded throughout the house unsettled the entire still-life of its suspension.  It was nothing, however, as the Master Bedroom slowly unveiled itself from beyond the door, and Phryne found herself standing in the very centre of the mystery. 

 

What she saw made her blood run cold.

 

Everything was as it had been - there were neither chalk markers, nor other indications of the ongoinginvestigation. Every piece of furniture, all too recently strewn across the floor, was righted and sitting primly in the neatness of its proper purpose. The mirror, once tilted, now reflected gaily that which held the lady detective firmly in place, stock still, and daring not even to breathe. 

 

For there, in the window restored firmly to one piece, stood a figure with its back to room, staring out over the grounds. Waves of richest silk hung loosely about its shoulders, covered over by thick curls of obsidian that reached toward the floor. It might have been startlingly beautiful, if it did not resound in the pit of Phryne’s stomach as the greatest _danger_ in the world. 

 

For the first time that evening, she reached into her pocket and did not hesitate to pull out her pearl-handled pistol. 

 

Her fingers quivered as she raised it, for they knew that the corporeal threat of bullets might not be a promised protection when the faint light of the moon reached through the careful draping as though the woman herself were made of fine chiffon. 

 

Phryne said not a word as she found her feet edging tentatively closer, still longing to know the answer that stood so clearly before her, so near within reach despite her fear, so supremely - 

 

“Phryne stop!” Jack’s voice shattered through the moment, his sure grasp settling around her waist before she knew quite what was happening, and jolting her to her senses just in time for her to look down to the despairing stones below as she was wrenched back from the window to the sound of crunching glass beneath her feet. Jack’s hold on her was instantly furious, and the look in his eyes revealed something she was not sure she had ever seen in them before as she found herself caught up possessively in his arms, “What on earth are you _doing_?” 

 

Phryne felt completely lost, “What? I - ” She turned her head to see the mess, the broken and the fallen, and finally the gaping window from which Jack’s distress seemed to emanate. Her gaze flickered back up to his as she held on to him with a new certainty and sudden rigidity, the reality of what had very nearly occurred settling into them both with a strangeness too much for words. 

 

“I - I don’t know,” was all she had left to say. 

 

And it was all she had _time_ to say, before it hardly mattered at all. 

 

It issued so faintly out of the shadows behind them that it might almost have been missed, had it not been stuck into the stillness with such a fragile piercing it forced Phryne and Jack to spin round and face it, framed in the elegantly sinister remnants of the moment before the little noise, which set both their hearts to the ground at the sight of a rumpled shirt, and loosened shoelaces. 

 

It was a sniffle, shaken and pathetic, and attached, in a moment of utter disbelief, to the shivering form of little Arthur Johns. 

 

*~*~*

 


	8. Straight Down to Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the light of day, no one really dares to share what they've been through.

_“Paint ghosts over everything, the sadness of everything._ _”_

_(_ Richard Siken, _War of the Foxes)_

 

~*~*~

 

They had - none of them - dared to speak a word about it.

 

As they sat down the hall from Arthur Johns’ hospital room, there was silence apart from the mumbling that could be heard beneath the door as doctors shuffled about their morning duties. The muted babble gave the air of strained questions and dim concerns. Reginald stood near the window of the waiting room, his face the most serious any had perhaps seen it as he gently held his arm, which was bound and slung, a grazed bullet-wound rendering it all but useless for the moment. Hugh’s head was in his hands as he sat forward on an old wooden chair, guilt clawing at him ferociously, and the feeling of his pistol - now confiscated - still resting heavy in his palm. Mac, not quite as incapacitated as poor Dr Winslow, had leaned against a nearby table after she had been ushered out of the room; even with a patch of gauze to mark the spot in which she had been injured, she still wore the white coat that illustrated the care she had insisted on giving the boy at once.

 

Soon, though, it had been time for _questions_.

 

The doctor had now turned her attention to Phryne, watching her closely as she stood at the centre of the room, staring at the door as though it might grant her access to the interview down the way by sheer will. Her eyes were fixed and if Mac knew anything - which of course she did, and a great deal - she knew that meant that her friend was deeply troubled by the whole affair. 

 

Then, weren’t they all?      

 

When that door finally opened, it seemed that Phryne had been in some sort of trance, frozen in place until the moment she had stepped forward into Jack’s path and pressed him without speaking for everything he knew. His face was grave, clearly exhausted, and the shake of his head made all in the room hold their breaths.

 

“He won’t speak,” he muttered hoarsely to Phryne, and it broke her heart on the spot. Her fingers curled round until they were clutching at his sleeve, and held his gaze with an earnest grief, “He just… he can’t.”

 

“Not even to his parents?”

 

Jack simply shook his head.

 

“It’s the trauma,” Mac added gravely, “we’ve seen it before with children, a kind of shell shock.”  

 

That the same impact could be visited on a child as on a man returned from war, none fancied to consider for long. Jack swallowed before the practicality of his work wrapped up those concerns into a more functional outlook, “Yes, well, at least he’s now safe. His parents will stay with him and report anything further to the Constabulary as it arises.”

 

The silence seemed to ring. Could the entirety of the thing really come to nothing more than a watching brief?

 

“And our reports?” Reginald offered up meekly.

 

“What we need in the first instance has already been handled by the constables on duty at the Hall,” Jack responded, “we’ll call you in for the formalities tomorrow, when you’ve had a chance to rest.”

 

Phryne’s grasp had not left Jack’s sleeve, just as her eyes had not left his face. They now seemed to echo the thoughts from around the room that ‘rest’ might not be had for some time.

 

“You’re free to leave,” Jack said. Nobody moved.

 

None asked what was next either, since the precarious nature of the whole was more than apparent. Indeed they were sure that the announcement of Arthur Johns’ reappearance would be widely reported considering the surrounding circumstances - which more than a few might consider unusual - and which never seemed to work in the Constabulary’s favour. Whatever had happened to the boy over the past few days, it would be speculated about until it was strangled into absurdity. Actual police work would be a nightmare and the truth would grow more obscure as the days wore on. If they could not get the words direct from Arthur’s mouth, they might be lost altogether to the annals of history and conspiracy.

 

Much, Phryne reflected with a little irony, like the story of Lady Cavanaugh herself. 

 

The sun was pouring in through the windows, however, as though to mark the charge of time, and there seemed little but to break and reconvene when the whole twilight atmosphere of the affair had been seared by its bright beams into a more manageable reality. They ought to have learned by that point, of course, that the entire matter of reality was spinning wildly beyond expectations.

 

No sooner had the room settled into the impasse, when a commotion awoke violently in the corridor outside, voices rising from incivility to outright hostility in a few moments. Jack blinked, but it was Phryne who recognised the peculiarity of the source within an instant. She pressed passed him and through the door with a stride that was reserved for dealing with only one person in the world.

 

“Aunt P?” she called out as she emerged amongst the white coats and caps, Jack in tow and the others following in similar curiosity. The older woman, however, was much too busy trying to persuade the cause of the ruckus that making a _scene_ was hardly in his favour.

 

Chester Willis, imposing and clearly upset, was having none of it, however, as he towered over the man Phryne knew to be Mr Johns. The pair were caught up in an exchange of bitter aggression, and it was not long before concern turned to intervention and Phryne was running.

 

“Keep your delinquent son away from my boy, Willis!” cried Mr Johns, days of grief that Phryne well understood marked across his face. “Hasn’t he done enough?!”

 

“Frederick is as much a victim of this situation as Arthur!” Chester yelled back.

 

“And yet here he stands while my son can’t even _speak_!”

 

“Hey!” Jack finally called out, forcing himself between the men as it looked like it might come to blows.

 

“You’ve got a lot of nerve bringing him here like this, as though he has the _right_ after what he dragged Arthur into – “

 

“He didn’t drag – “

 

“Stop it, both of you!” Jack interjected, and Phryne instinctually turned to poor Frederick, standing limply next to Aunt Prudence as though he might die on the spot, white through from head to toe. She took a hold of his forearm with a reassuring squeeze.

 

“I think you had better go home – “

 

“Not until my son has seen his friend,“ Chester pressed.

 

“His _friend_?” Johns saw red, “This is how he treats his friends is it?!”

 

“He doesn’t mean any harm, Mr Johns, I assure you,” Prudence foolishly attempted a defence, but received only the tail end of the man’s ire.

 

“That’s just it though, isn’t it?” Johns hissed, “He didn’t think beyond what he wanted all those nights ago, and now my boy is in the hospital and another one is _dead_! And you’re all coddling around him to make sure that dear Frederick isn’t put out!”

 

“He had nothing to do with – !“

 

“He was the last one on the scene! Who else could have – “

 

Chester Willis at once shoved forward again at the implication, swinging wide only to meet Jack’s immediate prevention. Aunt Prudence was too horrified by the statement to contain herself any longer. The stress of a million little pressures snapped within her, “Stop it! Stop! He just wants to see _Arthur_!”

 

Phryne reacted almost instantly, taking a firm hold of her aunt’s shoulder and turning her away at once, while Jack managed the temper of both father’s with Hugh coming in to pull Willis clear of the fray. Frederick stood stupefied, and Phryne knew that nothing would do him as much good right now as getting _away_ from the whole debacle. She moved at once towards the doors, pressing the boy and her aunt on by the elbow.

 

“He just wants to see Arthur,” Prudence muttered again, distraught as the quiver in her voice devastated her niece completely.

 

“I know, Aunt P,” she answered softly, “I know.” 

 

***

 

“I’ve given her a tonic for her nerves,” Mac confirmed as she stepped into Aunt Prudence’s drawing room, closing the door behind her and placing her hands squarely in her pockets, “she’s resting now.” Her voice sounded as weary as Phryne felt, even as she had extracted herself from the effects of her aunt’s emotions to manage the fallout of her own. 

 

“Thank you,” she offered softly, her lips shrugging into a genuine gratitude, “I’m afraid she’s taking the whole thing entirely to heart.” She stepped away from the window, taking in an abiding breath and releasing it into a deep sigh, “I can’t really blame her – it is the cruelest trick of fate that he should be called ‘Arthur’.” 

 

Mac’s sympathy was meted out in silence, alongside her more pointed concern, “It’s one of a few upsetting coincidences.”

 

Phryne’s eyes fixed on her friend, and she knew inherently that this was a question more than an observation. “I’m fine, Mac, honestly.”

 

“I don’t think that you are,” she refused.     

 

“I’m _managing_ ,” she clarified, “if I fell to pieces over every missing child, I’m sure I’d be catatonic.”

 

Mac didn’t argue, looking to the floor and knowing to pick her battles. “Where’s Frederick?” she opted for the more easily answered.

 

Phryne did not miss the transition, and she frowned with dissatisfaction at the entire affair, “His _father_ took him home.”

 

There, at least, was something they could agree on.

 

Mac’s lip curled slightly in dislike, “If I were Fred,  I’m not sure I’d want him for me, or against.”

 

“I definitely don’t have as many scruples,” Phryne tossed aside at once, “the man is odious, no matter _what_ side he’s on.” It earned a chuckle, a relief in the circumstances, and sufficient to set aside the charge of the room. Phryne smiled in response and stepped up to the doctor to examine the damage, “And how are you?”

 

“Oh, you know me,” Mac responded tilting her head slightly to allow the inspection, and touching two fingers to the little gauze patch, “I have a hard head – I’ve had to _adapt_ for survival.”

 

Phryne grinned, “I’m sorry we dragged you into the fray.”       

 

Mac looked alarmed at once, “Don’t you _dare_ – if you didn’t, I’d have to lie awake at night worrying, and there are far better things to lose sleep over.” 

 

The moment descended on them and the weight of the unspoken pressed itself in from all sides as though it had been waiting behind the emerald drapes. Phryne opened her mouth to ask, but Mac quickly put a stop to it, “I’m tired Phryne, and so are you – it can _wait._ Arthur is safe now, it can wait.”

 

It was never the right answer for Phryne’s relentless desire to _know_ , the instinct that had driven so many of her passionate pursuits, and her investigating streak particularly, but she would accept it because she couldn’t bring herself to demand more of a friend who had already given her so much.

 

“All right,” she acquiesced.

 

“Good,” Mac seemed only slightly suspicious, “now I’m going home – and so should _you_.” 

 

***

 

Phryne had not followed suit immediately; even as Mac had picked up her hat and departed, the lady detective had taken the time to make sure that Mrs Lovell had settled her aunt well enough, and leave strict instructions that she was to telephone Wardlow first thing in the morning. Even so, it seemed beyond belief that the sun might be dipping into late afternoon as she finally approached the Hispano, and she inwardly questioned whether or not she should be driving at all. Her limbs bore that heavy, lulled feeling so often present in the wake of adrenaline and sleep deprivation, and her mind had begun to feel sluggish as she barely registered the decisive clicking of her heels on the outside stairs. The thought of a hot bath and bed was sufficient, then, to switch her off to the world, and prevent the wave of questions which threatened to break the moment there was room for it.

 

It was for that reason that she did not recognise Josephine Randall until the woman was nigh on upon her.

 

“You’ve seen her,” she pressed immediately, almost belligerently, and Phryne let out a curse so distinct she was surprised it did not instantly arouse Aunt P from upstairs. “I told you,” she seemed greatly distressed, “ _warned_ you.”

 

“Mrs Randall, I’ve little time for this,” Phryne was not in the mood, “and I’ll thank you _never_ to trespass on my aunt’s property again.” How she had followed them in the first place beggared belief. “If you have something to tell the police – ”

 

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” the old woman didn’t listen, “it’s just like the first time – he came back from the islands without a care in the world, even when other’s _told_ him what was at stake. He had to go ahead in his _arrogance_.”

 

Phryne had tried desperately not to rise to it, even opening her car door to avoid the hook, but Mrs Randall had played her hand remarkably well. “What are you talking about?” she stopped.

 

The woman seemed suddenly cowed, however, now that she’d said what had clearly rested on her for some years, and the same shake Phryne had seen at Mountbatten returned to her frame with a vengeance, “Polynesia. When the expedition returned, everyone could feel the cloud it brought down on the house. He wouldn’t listen… “

 

“Wouldn’t listen to what?” Phryne pressed, smelling smoke in the woman’s fire, despite the babbling, and her eyes flashed a clear blue in utter impatience.

 

The hesitation turned to fear at the sight of that flash, however, and recognition seemed to blossom on the woman’s face. “… _No_ , I didn’t –” She clapped her hands over her mouth as her fear turned to panic, “I didn’t mean – Oh God, it’s too late. It’s too _late_.”

“If you know something, and you’re keeping it -“

 

“Evil! I told you there was _evil_ in that house, and _you_ wouldn’t listen either!”

 

It was too much.

 

“Mrs Randall,” Phryne advanced on her, unsettling her agitated stance and forcing her to step back, “unless you have something of substance to add, something which will help us actually uncover _what happened_ to that boy, I suggest you step away immediately, or risk my doing something _one_ of us will sincerely regret.”

 

It was enough to frighten her into a whimper, and into shielding herself from Phryne’s aggression, and the detective chastised herself for the action almost immediately. She forced her impatience to heel and, after a moment, tried to calm the situation, “I’m sorry, Josephine, it’s been a long night.”

 

“It’s too late,” she shook her head with a hoarse whisper, “ _I’m_ too late.”

 

“Too late for _what_?” Phryne tried.

 

Josephine stared at her with tortured pain etched all across her face, “I can already see her in your eyes.”  

 

***

 

Jack’s office seemed desolate as darkness compelled him to switch on his desk lamp, and he felt a creeping fear that the administration of Arthur’s return would not allow him to get the sleep he so sorely needed. It was not that he resented the work, but rather the limitations of his own body in light of the multitude of questions that had now exploded through this case. It was a strange phenomenon, to go so quickly from having no leads at all, to having a myriad. He knew, however, that they would be of no use to him if he did not give his mind a chance to rest. He collapsed back into his chair with a heavy sigh and stretched the aching muscles in his neck.

 

Without fail, the gloom drew him back to the Hall, sinister in his memory now as he recovered the sight and sound of Arthur, cowering from his touch against the bedroom wall.

 

A steady anger had begun to boil in his gut at the thought, connected to the frustration of having no idea what had done this to him, how he’d found his way there, where he had _been_ for the last few days, and he may well have stewed in it, had it not been for the steadying presence arriving at his door.

 

“You look quite dashing, exhausted in the lamplight,” she teased.

 

It washed over him like a balm, and his smile was instantaneous, “You should be at home, in bed.”

 

“Promises, promises,” she purred.

 

He eyed her from beneath the fingers that worked at the bridge of his nose, “What are you doing here?”

 

“You didn’t honestly think I’d leave you here to while away the lonely hours by yourself, did you?” she stepped into the room, her gait bearing the laziness of a long day, stopping to rest her fingertips on the edge of his desk. He simply waited. “I ran into an old friend at Aunt Prudence’s,” she confessed, “Josephine Randall.”

 

“What?” he sat forward, his brow furrowing in query.

 

“Precisely what I thought,” she answered, “evidently our little adventure has not gone unnoticed; she was full of all kinds of condemnation.”

 

“Condemnation of what? From my point of view, we found missing child,” he cut, always less charitable towards nonsense when he was tired, and clearly having fielded a little criticism from his superiors.

 

There was a pause as she considered that for a moment, the gravity of her melancholy side reaching out from her, “Is that what we did?”

 

Jack met her gaze over the desk, the lamplight casting faint shadows across her features that exaggerated the facts, which neither had yet addressed to anybody. “Is it?” he simply threw back, opening once more the first thing he could remember saying to her after the daze of it all.

 

‘ _What on earth are you doing?’_ __  
  


He wasn’t yet ready to confront the plummeting he had felt at the sight of her stepping, almost gliding towards the increasingly lethal window. The sheer determination on her face had frightened him on a viscerally deep level.

 

Phryne measured him closely, the gauntlet lying between them and waiting to see who would answer first, expose themselves to the scrutiny of the other. It had all been fun and games when the thought of the unexplained had been a tingle in the spine, rather than a night of lost memories. The truth was that to speak first was to risk admitting credulity in the face of what had previously been too ridiculous for words, an odd sort of macabre almost amusement. It would take the kind of courage that none had summoned – not Mac, not Reginald, not Hugh. It was a peculiar test then, for lovers growing in intimacy and a new kind of trust, which went beyond dangerous situations and mysteries of the less… mysterious kind.

 

Here they risked the most private of reputations: sanity before the world, or more specifically before each other.

 

“I barely remember a thing,” Jack admitted, and the forthrightness of his risking ridiculousness drew a breath from Phryne, “Just the laughter, the stairs, an _attacker_ , and Arthur.”     

 

Phryne swallowed, and then she hesitated.

 

For all his bravery, Jack’s story was hardly an exposure; his recollection contained nothing of growling in closets and women at windows. The breath she had drawn halted once more, and she ran from the admission, looking to the floor, “Any idea who he was? Your attacker?”

 

Jack felt the departure, but was unsure what it meant – for them or for the look he’d seen in her eyes before he had pulled her back from the edge. His exhaustion stopped him from pressing it, “No idea – he was large, strong. I didn’t get a clear look at him, I don’t think.”

 

When Phryne looked back at him, it was with both relief and the uncomfortable sticking feeling that she had misled him. After so many months of freedom from any hiddenness between them, it felt awful, wrong. She wanted at once to touch him and eradicate the barrier, but she could not bring herself to do it. “There’s clearly someone else who has access to the property, in honesty I’ve been finding myself rather curious about the Baron’s remaining family.”

 

“Yes,” Jack agreed, standing up and coming around to her. “After last night, though, I’m not sure they’ll be very enthusiastic about helping us.”     

 

“I’m sure they’ll have no choice,” Phryne argued back with a slight edge, clearly growing defensive against the suggestion that their operation had been anything other than fruitful, “you are the _police_ after all.”

 

Jack smiled, brushing her hair behind one ear, “Go home, Phryne. Get some sleep.”

 

“And what about you?” she tilted into the touch.

 

“I’ll be close behind, I promise.”

 

It was impossible to hide anything from those eyes, Phryne knew – the same ones that had worn away at her with gentle pleading for a year before she had been utterly undone by them. The fact that he didn’t take her into his arms now, didn’t kiss her the way they seemed compelled to every moment they were near made her feel the growing distance, and her heart clawed at it and begged her to tell him what had happened, to confide in him the truth – at least what she knew of it. Her lips drifted open as though they might do it without her permission, but the memory of curls and silver skin shut them at once, the straining memory of her own desperate curiosity sounding more absurd by the second.

 

Again she ran from the exposure, this time with humour.

 

“I’ll be sure to get Mr Butler to leave out your slippers,” she quipped, and then she moved to walk passed him, each touch becoming abrasive with the secret and the thought of closeness feeling more like betrayal.

 

She placed a hand on his chest as she made for the door. She did not get far.

 

Without a further word, Jack set aside all functionality, took a hold of her wrist, and pulled her back around and into him, wrapping her into a hug which mirrored the one that had saved her so fiercely from that morning’s fall. Where previously his arms had been all fear, however, they were now full of a desperate appreciation, and Phryne felt his intent through her very centre as he buried his face in her hair and pressed an urgent kiss to her temple to reassure her that he was _there_ regardless. It forced all anxiety from her with a huff of breath she had seemingly been holding until that moment, and she gripped at him in an admission of need she would never expose to anyone else. His kiss found her out in acknowledgment of even that vulnerability, tender and searching at once as the tension of the day’s coping buckled under his need to have her close and safe, and covered. The very warmth of his mouth seemed to question if she was all right. After a moment, they simply stood, their foreheads pressed together and Phryne holding tightly to his shirtfront as their breaths came in short rushes, colliding erratically.

 

“Take me home,” she finally murmured to him.

 

Paperwork be damned.    

 

*~*~*  


	9. Out of the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Although Phryne and Jack think they are on the other side of misadventure, Mountbatten Hall seems to reach for them even at a distance.

_“[W]hat if ghosts are something else?_

_Like memories somehow caught and trapped in time…?”_

_(_ Julia Green, _Breathing Underwater_ ) 

 

~*~*~

 

_He was coming. He was coming. He was coming._

 

_Her feet could not carry her quickly enough, giving way beneath her as her slippers turned on a glossed floor. Her fingers scrambled for the banister to keep her upright, but their connection resulted in a violent prevention and her chest collided with hard wood. She gave an ungainly whimper as the air was bruised out of her lungs. Inertia begged her to keep moving, her screaming mind panicking all the more that the sound was something he could hear and follow._

 

_She had to hide. She had to hide._

 

_All she could think of was the coat closet, and she knew it would be nothing to the man who knew the place so well, who had lived in it when not at home, spent so many evenings in intimate conversation, laughing with them - and now shooting at them._

 

_“Bedeliaaa!” came the fraught voice from below, full of a fevered frustration that smothered all good feeling between them. He had been mad with wanting since they had returned and he would kill her, she knew._

 

_She heard the footsteps on the stairs, heavy and menacing._

 

_She turned to see the coat closet, her only meager sanctuary, she ducked for it, but as she did, the corridor seemed to elongate unnaturally, stretching out for an age before her, and she knew she could run forever and never reach it._

 

_He was coming. He was coming. He was coming._

 

_The desperation in her grew with every step that seemed to bring her no nearer her goal, and like a bear on her trail, she could feel the foul breathing of his need behind her, powering on toward her as she found herself out in the open and exposed despite her best efforts. Her name came again, swamped in clutching, and compelling her to take ground._

 

_Finally she seemed to close the space between her and the hiding place. It would come down to the wire, she knew, but if she could just get there, just close the door behind her, just –_

 

_His hand slammed into her throat and she felt her feet leave the floor as she continued to scuffle, gasping as she met the hideous face of a ceremonial mask, grotesque as the ones downstairs, but peculiarly unknown. A pair of raging eyes could be seen behind it as his fingers closed into a grip that would crack her. He was speaking, vicious words she could not properly hear behind the wood. She focused on the sound even as she fought for breath, for life. She tried to understand, she tried to –_

 

“Phryne!” _she heard someone call from the rafters._

 

_All the while he spoke something she knew she must make sense of, even as she was collapsing, dying she knew. She fought him - a violent kicking - but his arms held her without reprieve, and she felt the light slipping. She cried out in an an almost feral scream for survival as she clawed at his face and struggled, and struggled –_

 

“Phryne! Phryne stop it!” _it wasn’t issued from those lips, and the realization seemed to crumble the world on itself._ With rapid blinking and still more slashing, she found the cool halls turn to a frictioned heat, and that voice sink into recognition, “It’s a dream, Phryne, wake up!” 

 

Her voice was once more her own, but it still growled even as the hands holding her wrists were that not of death, but of love. The rage subsided and she found familiar blue eyes peering frantically at her in the deep disquiet as his voice continued to beg, “Come back to me, Darling, _please_.” 

 

The dream broke, and though her heart hammered in her chest, Phryne clutched at the hold that had so recently been her death, her gritted teeth relaxing into gusts of rushed breath and desperate attempts to fight off the disorientation as she found herself sitting upright in her very own bed and confronted with concern. Jack simply faced her and held her as she came to terms with her surrounds, not daring to admit what he was feeling after being so suddenly and violently awoken in the midst of what had become such a beautiful sanctity. 

 

Wardlow. They were home. She was safe. 

 

As things settled into a calmer silence, she dared to try and make sense of what had happened – a dream. It had just been a dream, and yet she could _feel_ the pound of the wood against her slippered feet, the crush of fingers around her throat. The congealing of adrenaline in her stomach made for sour reflection, and as she finally cleared out of the daze and connected with Jack’s restraint, she realised she could not avoid an explanation. 

 

“I was back at the house,” she confessed in a hushed whisper, dropping her head against him and coming the closest she had yet come to admitting what she had seen in the Master Bedroom. Jack said nothing, cradling her head as she tried to formulate what it might mean. “I was being chased - by your attacker perhaps?” 

 

Something within her knew that was not true. 

 

“It was just a dream,” he muttered, and Phryne was unsure if he was trying to convince her or himself.

 

She took her time to breathe in the quiet nook of his shoulder. 

 

“Yes,” she finally pulled back, once again placing a hand to his chest as though that might anchor her further in reality - a dream, not a memory. 

 

“It’s been a bizarre few days,” he rationalized further. 

 

Phryne eyed him carefully in the dark, feeling something build between them. She had hoped for assistance to catalogue, not another explanation. “He was wearing a mask – awful, grotesque,” she shuddered.

 

“Something from Lord Cavanaugh’s study, perhaps?” he said, and Phryne felt it was something even as a caressed her face like she needed soothing more than his full attention. 

 

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and it was too much – something within her twinged, and she smirked. 

 

“With all this tenderness, I’m beginning to feel like I’ve turned into a porcelain doll overnight,” she said, and though it was not unkind, it bore the sharpness of her usual protection against perceived weakness. Perhaps it was the subconscious knowledge that this was not like anything they had faced since their return. She didn’t need coddling, Jack knew, but it had been a long time since she’d spoken to him in that tone and it gave him pause. 

 

Certainly she had not used it since London. He took careful stock of what she was saying. 

 

“You’re all right?” he asked. 

 

“I am,” she assured him. 

 

“All right,” he confirmed, and by that she knew that he would say nothing further about it. 

It pricked at something that had been disturbed at City South, the same niggling feeling that had appeared when she had been unable to tell him about moonlight and silk. Where she had avoided the desire to bridge the gap in his office, however, a more characteristic refusal to accept it arched up her neck in this instance, and the look in her eyes shifted into a wilder sort of defiance, the pads of her fingers pressing into his skin at the change. 

 

“This whole thing is beginning to wear out its welcome,” she clippedagain, a twinge of guilt rearing up immediately at the thought of both Arthur and Frederick. 

 

Jack said nothing, but as her eyes met his, he felt the shift in her demeanour more like a wave than the ripple it was on her surface, his observations of her in the quieter hours of their connection giving him the kind of scholarly experience to mark the subtler differences, if not the complete meaning of her sudden intent. When she reached for him, then, he did not miss the fighting way she eradicated the space between them, the sheer force of the rebellious will with which she kissed him, and though he could not have resisted it for anything, he knew at once that more had changed in the gallery of Mountbatten than either had realised. 

***

 

Though the morning light remained barricaded behind the heavy drapes, the glow of its insistence was enough to worry Phryne out of the sleep that had weighted her in place – even after Jack’s hold had extricated itself with gentle consideration. She felt his absence rather keenly, and smoothed the sheets beneath her fingers, as though she might recall him by connecting herself to the places he had so recently occupied, the things that had touched him last. She catalogued the feeling with an increasing curiosity, and a thought as to its sentimentality. She was not opposed, by and large, to true sentiment, but it felt to her a clutching, claustrophobic sort of thing, and it stopped up her lungs. 

 

She had no idea of the time, and despite the dryness in her mouth and the heaviness from which she had awoken, she felt rather like she had not slept at all.

 

The dream superimposed itself, and she knew at once the source of that earlier sentimentality. It made her recoil at it, and she forced the whole matter down. It was a dream, and certainly not something which was going to cow her into disintegrating like some kind of shrinking violet. She’d endured sleeplessness before, Heaven knew, and it was nothing a hearty breakfast and a little tonic could not cure. 

 

The flash of a mask reared up from her subconscious, black and red, it’s tongue protruding violently beneath crooked teeth and wide, white eyes. 

 

_Oh, for Heaven’s sake._

 

It took her no time at all to be up and about, and even delivering herself downstairs to breakfast – quite outside of her familiar routine when Jack was not there – at which point she made a full interrogation of Mr Butler for all pertinent detail. 

 

It was a half past ten. 

 

The Inspector had left promptly at six. 

 

There had been no news from the Station. 

 

There had also been no call from Aunt Prudence, which gave her a task to tackle immediately before poached eggs and sweet tea were sat down to with gusto. Her aunt was still shaken; Phryne could hear it in her voice, and the ardent discussion of all manner of trivia confirmed that Chester Willis had probably kept Frederick under wraps and driven the older woman into a protective avoidance of the whole nasty affair. 

 

In response, Phryne told her to expect her for afternoon tea promptly at three o’clock. 

 

Of course, none of this activity could turn the detective’s mind away from a detail noticed any more than ignoring letters from her father might dissuade him from trying to invest her money in any number of harebrained schemes involving the United States Postal Service. Even as she faced the headlines of that morning’s paper, all detailing Arthur’s story with an almost vampiric tragedy, she could not shake the images that seemed more imprinted on her than collected from the depths of her subconscious. 

 

While she chewed merrily through a piece of toast, then, her glance remained fixed on the centre of the table in the glaze of those who have long had the habit of holding the world in their heads. She fought her way through what she could remember of the downstairs residents of Mountbatten’s walls, of Lord Cavanaugh’s study, even the little figurines she had noted in the children’s bedrooms, none seemed to include the detailing she had seen on the mask in her dream, and she could not shake the feeling that it was not simple fodder to an overstimulated imagination – no matter how bizarre the last few days. 

 

It wasn’t until a part way through her second slice that the right detail came to the fore, and she stopped chewing altogether. 

 

Polynesia. 

 

Across all of the rooms, in every questioning, even on the item she had assumed to be unimportant in covering over the mysterious object excluded from Lord Cavanaugh’s ledger, there was a stamp of some relation to the region that rang out with acute clarity as the conversation with Josephine Randall descended on her from the fogged remnants of the day before. 

 

_Polynesia._

 

The dancing mask of an angry man made sudden sense – and that sense aroused with it a renewed interest in the expeditions of Lord Cavanaugh, which Phryne now noted had begun to draw all elements toward themselves. Once again, there were no open doors in the case of Gilbert Rodgers and Arthur Johns, and once again she felt the compelling notion that their answer lay squarely in the past, as the present seemed to cough up details like so much junk on a beach. 

 

Yes, Polynesia. 

 

The mystery. The ghost. The very Hall itself.

 

“Mr B,” she asked as the man appeared to clear a dish, “when was the last time you visited the Public Library?” 

 

***

 

The ruckus began in the hallway, and Jack knew at once that his chickens were coming home to roost. 

 

He had been on thin ice with his superiors since the dash for London, but his impeccable record was still tiding him over – not to mention his productivity. They could say what they would about his connection with Phryne, but they could say nothing to the dent they were making in the case load working as a team. As the sound of harsh words and footsteps approached, however, and the deferentially apologetic tones of poor Collins stumbled around them, he knew that this would be a critical moment for their future. If it had not been for the more important matter of seeing that everything about Arthur’s case was handled with absolute precision, he might have worried about it sooner. 

 

“Sir – “ he tried as the door opened and Deputy Commissioner Quinton Morris, strode in with the cloud of negative public attention hanging heavily from his thick brows. 

 

“Robinson,” he said, and it was all that was needed to convey the exact pressure he was getting from above. 

 

“We found the boy,” Jack replied, his voice even and the entire debate contained to those six words, exchanged between the kind of men who used them so sparingly. 

 

“And you can count that as the sole reason you’re still Inspector in charge of this case,” Morris returned gruffly. “Now, what the devil were three civilians doing staking out your crime scene, Jack? You knew the papers were all over this.”

 

It was a peculiar thing, the way his sudden quieting filled the room with a greater threat than yelling ever could have. Jack didn’t have a particularly compelling answer for him – it had been a circus, a circus that he had not even squared away in his own mind, let alone developed an explanation for a rational third party. He could not believe what he was about to argue. 

 

“Reginald Winslow is an expert working with Scotland Yard, sir, he’s – “

 

“He’s a ghost hunter, Robinson, a bloody _ghost hunter,_ ” Morris all but growled, “and now the Constabulary looks like we were clowning around on what could be the most publicised case of the year. I had to explain to the Commissioner that the ghost was _not_ our primary avenue of investigation, to say nothing of what I had to finagle with the family. Their solicitor all but demanded your resignation.”

 

The first detail caught. 

 

“What family?” Jack asked.

 

“What?” 

 

“Finagle with _what_ family?” his mind was too tired to worry about political machinations. 

 

“The owners of the estate,” the man’s face was white, “or is that a clue that you and _Miss Fisher_ , failed to follow up?” 

 

Jack’s neck arched up immediately at the insinuation. He would not rise to it, since it would prove a red herring to the more critical information; his patience, however, stuttered under a lack of sleep, despite the fact that he knew that Phryne’s work needed no defence from him. “The _family_ has thus far been unavailable for interview,” he said, “they were, of course, the first point of contact in this case. If you have any information regarding them, I would be very eager to learn of it.” His jaw was tight, “Sir.” 

 

Morris stood, calculating his next move and whether to push any further. Whatever his current mood, hehad long respected the Inspector as an officer and as a friend. He reached into the pocket of his coat, and fixed Jack with a stable glance, the sort which reserved its reprimand in exchange for a chance to get on with the matter at hand. With a thud, a large envelope landed on the desk, the mark of the District Court of Petty Sessions stamped on its corner. 

 

“They’ve been engaged with the Court all morning, and have managed to obtain an injunction against any further trespass,” he warned. “They know the police can’t be barred, but they’ve gone to great lengths to refuse entry to any civilian not engaged by the Constabulary, most particularly Dr Winslow and…” he hesitated, the next bringing him clear discomfort, “your wife.” 

 

Jack stiffened, his breath halting as the pair once again locked down into an impasse of will. 

 

Morris eventually allowed a rush of breath to clear the air, once again considering his position on the matter. He was an open-minded man, but there was little to illustrate to him that Phryne’s involvement in this casehad not directly led to their current predicament. “I can well understand your desire to be discreet about London, especially to maintain her professional footing,” he said, “but this is a legal matter now, Jack, and the public record has somewhat left it out of our control.”

 

Jack looked down at the envelope as thought it were to blame, and took in a steadying breath. Morris was right. Whatever he and Phryne could do to maintain her independence as an investigator in their professional circles, nothing could prevent her new legal status from being presented to the Court. How he would tell her it had, he was far from sure. “The solicitor you mentioned,” he pressed forward, on to the case and the only thing that seemed to be stable beneath his feet at the moment, “did he leave you with a contact where he can be reached?” 

 

Morris nodded, “His name is Friend.” 

 

Jack gave a dark huff at the irony. 

 

“Michael Friend.”

 

*~*~*

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment if you have a moment! x


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